Israel’s big election has delivered a predictably messy result. On Tuesday, voters pushed Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition tangibly below the 61 seats needed for a parliamentary majority, but there may still be a way for the long-term prime minister to limp on. ​If so, it’s consequential for Middle East stability, and a vindication for oil traders’ recent jitters.

With over 70 percent of votes counted, Netanyahu’s coalition has ‌54 seats, 10 less than it managed in 2022. Opponent Gadi Eisenkot’s anti-Netanyahu coalition has only 47. But parties representing Arab Israelis, who also oppose the government, are forecast to nearly double their seats to the high-teens. That should add up to a clear rejection of the incumbents.

Two big factors complicate matters, though. First, Arab parties rarely form coalitions with the rest – in fact, Eisenkot’s bloc includes right-wing ​politicians like Avigdor Lieberman who have explicitly ruled such a deal out. Second, Netanyahu’s Likud party looks likely to be the biggest faction – even if it ​comes at the expense of his far-right coalition allies.

What happens next is unclear. President Isaac Herzog may invite either Eisenkot or Netanyahu to form a new government, even though both would require currently hard-to-envisage deals to reach a majority. If both fail Israel could hold another election. Yet delays arguably ​help the incumbent – Netanyahu will remain caretaker prime minister for months, and having secured a majority of Israeli Jewish votes he may fancy his chances next time around.

A decisive majority ​for Eisenkot might have led to a rethink on areas that appear to have driven a recent spike in Israeli emigration, such as Netanyahu’s judicial reforms and his costly subsidies to the ultra-orthodox Haredi community. But the wider upshot might have been a government that took a different approach to US President Donald Trump’s call to “finish the job” in Iran.

Judging by Netanyahu’s initial comments overnight about the need ​to “remove the existential threat of Iran once and for all”, the scope for the US and Israel to escalate remains on the table. That will worry Saudi Arabia, ​the target of repeated recent attacks from Iran-aligned Yemeni Houthis, and its Gulf neighbours. Not least because Trump and Netanyahu’s Iran war has thus far been a strategic failure, achieving little more than ‌a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Oil prices are driven by far more than Israeli politics. But Brent crude has hovered above $100 a barrel since early September, compared to $70 before the Iran war started in February, as investors price in further escalation. It ticked up to $115 a barrel on Wednesday - and may well now stay there for some time.