I’m not that old, but I’m old enough to understand that there’s one iron law in Israeli elections: never trust an exit poll.
I was only five during the 1996 Knesset elections. The common recollection then was that Israel went to bed with Shimon Peres as prime minister and woke up with Benjamin Netanyahu.
I also remember when, in 2015, the exit polls had Netanyahu in a dead heat with the Zionist Union’s Isaac Herzog, but as the votes were counted, it became increasingly clear that Netanyahu had won.
That is why I’ve had to exercise some impulse control when it comes to commenting on yesterday’s results. Many were quick to pull the trigger as soon as the first exit polls came in. The full results are not out yet, but with 85% of the votes counted, we now have a more complete picture. And complicated though that picture may be, I’m still optimistic about Israel.