Donning rose-tinted glasses, Blue and White celebrates like they’ve already won

As the countdown on Channel 12 struck zero and the results of its exit poll appeared on the huge screen at the front of Blue and White’s election headquarters in the Tel Aviv Expo Center, campaign workers and party activists let out a collective scream of joy, jumping in the air in a burst of raised arms, clenched fists and emotion.

The channel’s results, predicting that the party established only two months ago would overtake Netanyahu’s Likud by a margin of four seats and he would not be able to muster automatic support for a Knesset majority, was everything that the relatively small crowd of some 150 people (with twice as many journalists in the room) had hoped and worked for.

The results, giving Blue and White 37 seats and Likud 34, would mean that party leader Benny Gantz will be given the opportunity by President Rivlin to form a government, according to the scenario touted by party leaders in recent days.

They told a good story for the party, but they didn’t tell the whole story. The two other TV exit polls — on Channels 11 and 13 — showed Blue and White and Likud neck-and-neck, and Netanyahu with a relatively straightforward path to victory. The crowd however, seemed not to notice or ignored that inconvenient fact.

After the initial explosion of cheers, the crowd broke into successive chants of first, “Blue and White, Blue and White,” then “Who’s coming? The next prime minister!” and finally and triumphantly, “Upheaval, upheaval, upheaval,” in reference to the 1977 Likud victory after 30 years in opposition.

As the results of the smaller parties in the Channel 12 poll started to roll onto the screen and the right-wing New Right and Moshe Feiglin’s ultra-nationalistic Zehut were both predicted to have failed to pass the electoral threshold, the crowd let out another bellow of joy, shock, surprise and relief. With both out of the Knesset, the task of forming a coalition would be significantly easier and the party would be less pressured to accept hard-right proposals. Again, though, the Blue and White enthusiasts were only viewing a partial picture.

A heated campaign season reached its climax Tuesday with a tense Election Day marred by vote fraud allegations and with almost all parties attempting to galvanize their bases by claiming they were in dire straits due to low turnout among their voters. Blue and White had warned just a half an hour before polls closed that they were behind and needed more support.

Twenty minutes before the exit polls were released at 10 p.m, the hall had been nearly empty of party officials and supporters and a tense quiet filled the room that had now been shattered.

In the immediate celebration, one activist wearing a Blue and White t-shirt hugged this reporter and said simply, “unbelievable, unbelievable.” Asked how he felt, he responded: “This couldn’t be better. This is everything we could have wanted.”

Another activist, 23-year old Maya from Petah Tikva, said she had been preparing herself for disappointment. “I really thought we would lose. I was ready for that. Not for this!” she smiled.

Though the chanting and dancing were still ongoing, the results of two other exit polls, from the Channel 11 Kan public broadcaster and Channel 13, it was belatedly being internalized, made less promising predictions. Kan still had Blue and White ahead with 37 to Likud’s 36, but Channel 13 predicted a draw at 36. And both had a right-wing bloc led by Netanyahu gaining enough seats to form a coalition.

While many party members had been blindsided by the results of the two other TV exit polls, one member of the crowd, standing at the back with his arms crossed, was not finding out for the first time from the television, and also knew something that the crowd did not yet.

Ronen Tzur, the man behind much of Blue and White’s campaign strategy, had been told the results with enough time to ensure that Channel 12 would be on the screen at 10 p.m., giving the activists a victory to celebrate rather than the more murky picture presented when all three polls are seen together.

The various survey results could mean that a difficult decision lies ahead for President Reuven Rivlin, who will meet with the leaders of all the parties that cleared the electoral threshold, hear who each of them recommends as prime minister, and determine which candidate has the best chance of forming a coalition of at least 61 out of the 120 elected Knesset members.

Netanyahu, Lapid and others have suggested that a gap of more than two or three seats between Likud and Blue and White could play a significant factor in Rivlin’s decision on who should get the first shot at cobbling together a government.

Speaking to The Times of Israel last week, Blue and White number two Yair Lapid — who would replace Gantz as prime minister in two and a half years as part of a rotation deal — said that if his party won by four seats, “no power in the world” could stop them from forming a coalition.

Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed that Rivlin will choose whichever party is the biggest if no prime ministerial candidate has a sufficient number of recommendations from other party leaders to assemble a coalition, and warned that Rivlin was just looking for an “excuse” to choose someone other than Netanyahu.

The different numbers mean Israelis will have to wait for the real results to know whether Netanyahu will indeed be given a chance to muster a majority coalition of right-wing parties and retain his office.

And exit polls have been proven wrong in the past. In the previous election in 2015, they concluded that there was a tie between Isaac Herzog’s Zionist Union and Netanyahu’s Likud, while in actuality Likud won six seats more than Labor.

Tzur, however, asserted to The Times of Israel the results mean Gantz will undoubtedly replace Netanyahu. “There is no question, Gantz is prime minister,” he said.

But the uncertainty over the final results was could still change the calculations for how he gets there, he admitted. “We are still very tense, to know the exact path, we will have to wait. But he will be prime minister,” he said.

Moments later, the party put out a statement, likely drafted by Tzur, saying: “We have won. The people of Israel have spoken.”

And that was the message clearly impressed upon the activists in the room.

“We are ahead and that is what matters,” said Maya after seeing the three sets of results. “This is what we needed and this is what we got. Things will chance a bit but I can’t see Gantz not being prime minister.”

Netanyahu, meanwhile has also declared victory. The final results, only due by Wednesday evening, may change dramatically, and whatever the calculation, forming a coalition will be no walk in the park.

But for a short while at least, the Blue and White party was celebrating.