Netanyahu loses his majority, but no one has won it yet

If today's Israeli general election was a referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu, the result is far less clear-cut than the country’s opposition would have wanted.

If the exit polls are right - and that’s a big if - Mr Netanyahu’s Likud will be the single largest party in the next Knesset, even though it has lost seven or eight seats.

At the same time, the opposition - or the "change bloc" as it is known in Israel - appears to have edged out the prime minister’s camp.

But Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party had very much hoped to emerge as the largest single party, giving it a decisive mandate to lead the negotiations to form a government.

Mr Eisenkot had warned that Mr Netanyahu wanted a tie and urged Israelis to make sure Yashar came out on top.

It seems that is not to be.

Mr Netanyahu has dominated Israeli politics for three decades, across three spells in the prime minister’s office.

He is a comeback king - a savvy political operator - who should not be counted out until someone else has actually been sworn in.

To understand the bigger picture, though, you need to zoom out - to both the far right and the country’s Arab parties.

Mr Netanyahu has avoided heavy losses by pitching hard to the right.

At every turn in this campaign, he made sure he was not outflanked by the far right parties that he has governed with for the past four years.

It appears to have worked.

Likud defeated the final polls by several seats, while the parties to its right have largely stood still - and one new hard right party, led by the former general Ofer Winter, appears to have fallen below the threshold to enter parliament altogether.

But it has come at a cost.

Likud’s relative gains have largely come from within Mr Netanyahu’s own camp, not from his opponents.

And so, while he may lead the largest party, he and his allies on the far right and among the ultra-Orthodox parties are nowhere near the 61 seats needed for a majority.

The other story of the night is the Arab parties, which appear to have made stunning gains - from 10 seats at the last election to as many as 17 or 18.

That would be the most seats Arab-led parties have ever won and it is the result of a surge in turnout among Israel’s Arab citizens.

One exit poll suggests that Arab turnout even surpassed that of Jewish voters.

It does not take a mathematician to see what that means.

Add the 52 or 53 seats that so-called "change bloc" is projected to win to those 17 or 18 Arab seats, and there is a clear and decisive majority against Mr Netanyahu.

On these numbers alone - unless he is able to peel off some of the parties that vowed not to work with him before the election - he has no path to another term as prime minister.

Taken as a referendum, then, Mr Netanyahu has lost it.

But again, things are far more complicated than the numbers suggest because the opposition parties have ruled out going into government with the Arab parties.

Tonight, Mr Eisenkot said he would not form a government with them because they "do not meet our conditions" - first and foremost that they do not recognise Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

There has been plenty of talk that the Arab parties could support a government from the outside, by voting for it or abstaining in the Knesset - in effect, a minority government.

And there is a long history in Israel of politicians reversing pre-election pledges once the votes are counted.

Politics, as they say, is a game of addition.

The expectation tonight is that Mr Eisenkot, as leader of the largest opposition party, will win the most recommendations when President Isaac Herzog consults the parties - and so will be the first to be tapped to try to form a government.

He will have four weeks to do so, with a possible two-week extension.

Israel went into this election split down the middle.

On tonight’s numbers, it has come out of it the same way - with a majority against Mr Netanyahu, but no majority yet for anyone else.