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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Tuesday, March 3, 2020

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu smiles after first exit poll results for the Israeli elections at his party's headquarters in Tel Aviv, March 3, 2020. (AP/Ariel Schalit)

Likud holds lead after 90% of votes counted, but still short of coalition

By ToI Staff and Agencies

Right-wing bloc on course to win 59 seats; updates fluctuating significantly, but Netanyahu declares victory, plans coalition talks

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara addresses their supporters on the night of the Israeli elections, at the party headquarters in Tel Aviv, on March 3, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Netanyahu vows to build ‘strong government’ as Likud celebrates ‘massive win’

By Raphael Ahren and ToI Staff

Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz speaks to supporters at the party headquarters in Tel Aviv, on election night, March 3, 2020. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Gantz: We’ll respect the voters’ decision, Likud doesn’t have majority

By Raoul Wootliff

Analysis

Likud has beaten Blue and White, but Netanyahu’s options hinge on final count

In Israel’s multi-party system, there’s a world of difference between the prime minister winning the backing of 61, 60 or 59 of the Knesset’s 120 MKs

Prominent Israeli politicians, in a composite photograph for the March 2, 2020 elections (Flash 90)

AnalysisNetanyahu back from brink with big election gain; now two court battles loom

By David Horovitz

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses supporters at Likud party headquarters in Tel Aviv, on March 3, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

High Court petition seeks to block Netanyahu from forming government

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses supporters at Likud party headquarters in Tel Aviv, on March 3, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Live updates (closed)

Likud, Blue and White jockey for position as votes tallied

By ToI Staff and Jacob Magid

92% of votes counted said to give Likud-led right-wing bloc 59 seats, 2 shy of majority; Blue and White 4 seats shy of PM’s party; votes of soldiers and diplomats not yet tallied

7:37 pm

1st death due to coronavirus reported in Spain
7:36 pm

Vatican says pope's symptoms point to simple cold
7:24 pm

Trump says he had 'very good talk' with Taliban leader days after signing peace deal

A meeting of the heads of the rightist-Haredi bloc of parties supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) on January 14, 2020. (Courtesy)

Netanyahu meets with allies as results signal right won’t muster majority

With 90% of count predicting PM-led political bloc slightly short of 61 seats, Likud leader and party chiefs reportedly agree not to rule out including Liberman in next government

Illustrative: Blue and White party member Omer Yankelevich at the Knesset, in Jerusalem, May 14, 2019. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Likud said threatening to air tape on Blue and White MK unless she joins right

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) and his wife Sara address supporters at the Likud party campaign headquarters in the coastal city of Tel Aviv early on March 3, 2020, after polls officially closed. (GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)

Live updates (closed)ELECTION DAY AS IT HAPPENED: Likud surges, but PM’s path to coalition uncertain

Head of the Joint List party Ayman Odeh speaks to the media outside his home in Haifa, March 3, 2020 (Meir Vaknin/Flash90)

Headed for 15 seats, Joint List chief claims ‘huge’ success, cites Jewish voters

Ayman Odeh urges left not to despair but to consider ‘partnership and a principled alternative,’ points out his mainly Arab alliance was sole opposition party to win more seats

Ayman Odeh (C), leader of the Hadash party that is part of the Joint List alliance, gives an address with other alliance leaders at their electoral headquarters in Israel's northern city of Shefa Amr on March 2, 2020 Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP)

Exit polls stir elation and trepidation for rising Joint List

Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz speaks after exit polls for the Knesset elections at party's headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel, March 3, 2020. (AP/Sebastian Scheiner)

Gantz tells faithful to wait for final results after exit polls show Likud gains

By Raoul Wootliff and ToI Staff

Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman speaks at the party headquarters in Modi'in, on elections night, March 2, 2020. (Sraya Diamant/ Flash90)

Again likely kingmaker, Liberman vows to do everything to prevent 4th elections

Yisrael Beytenu leader, who twice refused to join right-wing Netanyahu government, says party will ‘make a decision one way or the other’

Likud MK and chairman of the Knesset Regulatory Committee Miki Zohar at the Knesset, September 9, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/FLASH90)

Likud says talks underway with center-left ‘deserters’ to boost bloc to 61 seats

The heads of the Gesher, Labor and Meretz party, Orly Levy, Amir Peretz and Nitzan Horowitz at the party headquarters on elections night, in Tel Aviv on March 2, 2020. (Avshalom Sassoni/ Flash90)

Downcast Labor-Gesher-Meretz blames Blue and White for projected poor showing

Volunteers sort election posters bearing the portrait of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the Likud party's electoral campaign headquarters in Tel Aviv on March 2, 2020. (Jack Guez/AFP)

Israel media review

Declare victory early, declare victory often: 7 things to know for March 3

By Joshua Davidovich

The press declares Netanyahu winner on the basis of exit polls and early results. What could go wrong?

AnalysisElection is a victory for annexation, whether or not coalition can be formed

Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett gives a victory speech to supporters in Kfar Maccabiah after exit polls are released on March 2, 2020. (Flash90)

2020 Knesset electionsBennett says election delivers victory for ‘annexation government’

Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz speaks to CNN, March 2, 2020. (CNN screenshot)

Jordanian PM says ties with Israel at a nadir, peace treaty ‘at risk’

Omar Razzaz warns West Bank annexation could send relations into ‘deep freeze mode’; denounces ‘violation’ of Muslim, Christian sites in Jerusalem

Volunteers sort election posters bearing the portrait of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the Likud party's electoral campaign headquarters in Tel Aviv on March 2, 2020. (Jack Guez/AFP)

Palestinians decry election results as win for West Bank annexation

By AFP and Adam Rasgon

The morning after: Notes from a leftist

I feel numb. I need to start working but I can’t motivate myself to get dressed. Maybe another black coffee from my rainbow flag cup will help.

Uri Pilichowski

Bernie doesn’t understand Israel and Gaza

In casting the Israeli-Palestinian issue as a matter of justice, the candidate naively ignores more pressing needs for peace and security

Ariel Paz-Sawicki

Why should you and I give the gas monopoly NIS 325 million?

Taxpayers are slated to foot half the bill for a new pipeline to carry gas that’s already absurdly overpriced. Let’s stop it.

Simon Wiesenthal’s visit to Judenstein still matters

Blood libels, long repudiated by the Catholic Church, continue to fuel today’s anti-Semitic attackers – with deadly results

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara address supporters as confetti falls upon them at the Likud party campaign headquarters in Tel Aviv early on March 3, 2020 (GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)

Analysis

Netanyahu and Gantz both leave all options open, but few may be on the table

A unity government? Bringing Liberman back? Wooing a turncoat or two? Why some of the potential solutions to the deadlock possibly following the latest election may be nonstarters

Shas supporters explode in excitement upon watching the exit polls on March 2, 2020. (Jacob Magid/Times of Israel)

Shas backers elated as exit polls predict strong showing for both party and bloc

Otzma Yehudit chairman Itamar Ben Gvir (second from L) speaks to the media at the party headquarters on elections night in Jerusalem, on March 2, 2020. (Mendy Hechtman/Flash90)

Snagging only a few votes, far-right party stands by decision to stay in race

Central Elections Committee head Orly Adas shows a mock quarantined ballot, during a press conference at the Knesset in Jerusalem on February 26, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Count of quarantined Israelis’ votes falls to senior election officials – report

By ToI Staff and Raoul Wootliff

After staff refuse to tally ballots of those suspected of carrying coronavirus, task is assigned to director of Central Elections Committee, other top figures

Workers at Sheba-Tel Hashomer Hospital wait for Israelis who were under coronavirus quarantine on the cruise ship Diamond Princess, in Japan, February 20, 2020. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Virus outbreak has cost economy NIS 1 billion, Finance Ministry says

Illustrative: An ambulance, carrying an Israeli woman returning from Italy who displayed symptoms of the coronavirus, arrives at the infectious disease unit at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer on February 28, 2020. (Jack Guez/AFP)

2 more Israelis diagnosed with coronavirus, bringing number of sick to 12

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman at the annual AIPAC conference in Washington on March 26, 2019. (Jim Watson/AFP)

At AIPAC, Trump’s Israel envoy takes aim at Democrats, pushes peace plan

By Eric Cortellessa

David Friedman launches partisan broadside against progressives, backs settlements, even as pro-Israel lobby attempts to highlight bipartisanship

Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg speaks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) 2020 Conference, March 2, 2020 in Washington. (AP/Alex Brandon)

Bloomberg to AIPAC: I’ll never condition aid to Israel, no matter who’s PM

By Eric Cortellessa

Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) 2020 Conference, March 2, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Pence to AIPAC: Sanders would be ‘most anti-Israel’ president in US history

By Eric Cortellessa

Illustrative: Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) 2020 Conference, in Washington, March 2, 2020. (Alex Brandon/AP)

Analysis

Sanders and Trump skip AIPAC, but take center stage anyway

Absences of Republican president and leading Democrat candidate to replace him underscore increasing threat to viability of a pro-Israel posture that rests on bipartisanship

US President Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally on March 2, 2020 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Brian Blanco/Getty Images/AFP)

Trump rips into Biden, is told by Sanders to butt out, ahead of Super Tuesday

By AAMER MADHANI

From left, Democratic US presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, talk before a Democratic presidential primary debate, February 25, 2020, in Charleston, South Carolina. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Super Tuesday primaries: Biden looks to blunt Bernie’s rise

By Steve Peoples and Bill Barrow

IDF, US military launch Juniper Cobra air defense drill, despite virus fears

By Judah Ari Gross

After one joint exercise with US was called off over concerns of coronavirus infection, 10-day ballistic missile defense drill — one of Israel’s largest — kicks off

Israeli paratroopers and US soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment take part in training during the joint Israeli-US military Juniper Cobra exercise at the Tzeelim urban warfare training center in southern Israel on March 12, 2018. (Jack Guez/AFP)

Joint US-Israeli military exercise mothballed due to coronavirus

By Judah Ari Gross, ToI Staff and Agencies

People wearing face masks in downtown Tehran, Iran, March 2, 2020. (AP/Vahid Salemi)

Iran says 77 now dead from coronavirus, highest toll outside China

By AFP

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More Headlines

Evan Cohen, left, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (GPO)

After 7 months on the job, PM’s foreign media spokesman calls it quits

By Raphael Ahren

Kent Lundin, 73, a retired ambulance driver from Kolback, Sweden, has cancer. He lost hundreds of thousands of Swedish crowns to Milton Group (Alexander Mahmoud/Dagens Nyheter)

Binary options mutates: Israeli-run scam in Kyiv leaves a trail of broken lives

James Lipton at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, September 9, 2017. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP/File)

‘Inside the Actors Studio’ host James Lipton dies at 93

By AP and ToI Staff

Fiverr's co-founder and CEO, Micha Kaufman. (Courtesy/Yuval Taog)

Fiverr says its freelancers earned over $1 billion since its launch 10 years ago

Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Mariano Grossi from Argentina at the International Center in Vienna, Austria, February 10, 2020. (Ronald Zak/AP)

UN nuclear watchdog plans rebuke of Iran over access to sites – report

By Stuart Winer and AP

Illustrative: A protester holds a sign reading 'Boycott Israel, Free Palestine' during a Quds-day demonstration in Berlin, on June 9, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / Tobias SCHWARZ)

100 LGBT filmmakers to boycott Tel Aviv festival to support queer Palestinians

By Stuart Winer

Shira Yalon-Chamovitz (YouTube screen grab)

Election broadcast relaxes a harried news cycle for the cognitively impaired

By Jessica Steinberg

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (3rd-R) waves upon his arrival at a rally marking the 31st anniversary of the terror group's founding, in Gaza City December 16, 2018. (Said Khatib/ AFP)

Hamas’s Haniyeh meets Russian FM, thanks him for critical view of US plan

Crooner Lionel Richie sings to an adoring crowd at his long awaited Tel Aviv performance on March 2, 2020. (Courtesy ToI Staff)

Lionel Richie says ‘Hello’ to crowd of adoring Israeli fans

Pope Francis coughs during the Angelus noon prayer he recited from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, March 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope tests negative for coronavirus after canceling events due to cold – report

By AP

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