Netanyahu Defies Polls, Survives

Good morning,

Before the election, every major Israeli television poll had Benjamin Netanyahu losing. They were wrong.

[BRIEF]

Voter turnout in Israel yesterday was the highest since 1999. Final results are due later this week, and the numbers may still shift, but as of now, with 85 percent of ballot boxes counted:

• Netanyahu performed better than expected. His Likud party looks like it has won 27 seats—six to eight more than the final polls predicted—against 22 for Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar. Netanyahu’s bloc of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties holds 54 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, and Eisenkot’s opposition bloc holds 49.

Still short of the finish line. A majority requires 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, and neither bloc will win that many. The 17 seats in between belong to two Arab-led parties, lifted by unusually heavy Arab turnout.

• Eisenkot can reach 61 only with their help, and some of his own allies refuse to govern with them. Netanyahu is already pressing that point, calling it unthinkable to build a government that relies on “anti-Zionist Arab parties.”

The advantage is Netanyahu’s. Once final results are in, Israel’s president will consult party leaders and invite one to form a government within 28 days, plus a possible 14-day extension.

• Netanyahu heads both the largest party and the largest bloc. He needs seven more seats, which would require drawing defectors from an opposition built out of rival parties, including former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s Beyachad at 12 seats.
• Eisenkot’s options are worse. He can try a minority government propped up by Arab parties, or a unity deal with the man he spent the campaign calling unfit to lead.
• If no one succeeds, Israel votes again within months, and Netanyahu would enter that race having just beaten the pollsters.

And he governs in the meantime. Until a new government is sworn in, Netanyahu remains caretaker prime minister, with the authority to take Israel back to war with Iran.

• Netanyahu reportedly wanted to strike Iran before the vote, but President Trump opposed restarting the war before America’s November 3 midterms. After the exit polls, Netanyahu said he could work with Trump to eliminate Iran’s threat for good.
• Analysts warn that a new strike could pressure his rivals into a wartime unity government.
• Iran, meanwhile, is weighing a Qatari-brokered draft deal to end the war, with a response due Friday.

Many Israelis clearly see Netanyahu as the leader who can keep them safe. But this nation, which descended from the ancient kingdom of Judah, is not only still surrounded by deadly enemies but also bitterly divided against itself. Bible prophecy warns that its trials will intensify before they end.

Bolsonaro Flees to America

Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro has left Brazil for the United States after losing Sunday’s presidential election to incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro won the first round by 2.2 million votes, then surprisingly lost the second round by 4.4 million votes amid a controversial disruption of bus service and a subsequent order by Brazil’s Supreme Court to extend voting in major cities for two hours.

• Bolsonaro has not resisted da Silva remaining in power, but he also has not conceded the election.
• President Donald Trump said the election “looked terrible” and “like another rigged election.”

On Monday, the court ordered Bolsonaro to surrender his passports within 24 hours as part of an investigation into money-laundering accusations he has denied. When he did not comply, authorities canceled his travel documents, and he departed for the U.S.

Prince Luiz Philippe de Orléans e Braganza, a federal deputy allied with the Bolsonaro family and a descendant of both Holy Roman Emperor Francis ii and Brazilian Emperor Pedro ii, has also described the election as appearing rigged.

• He was considered a potential vice-presidential running mate for Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 and previously served as chief financial officer of Digital World Acquisition Corp., the spac that merged with Trump Media & Technology Group to take Truth Social public.

Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party, despite failing to secure the presidency, roughly doubled its Senate caucus and is now the chamber’s largest single party. Flávio Bolsonaro’s departure to the U.S. is viewed by some as a way to avoid immediate legal pressure while remaining able to influence his political movement from abroad.

Herbert W. Armstrong prophesied that the alliance between Europe and South America would grow extremely strong. Now the Liberal Party is trying to improve Brazil’s relationship with Europe by pointing people back to the Holy Roman Empire.

• This movement is currently persecuted by the Marxist de Silva administration, yet Bolsonaro’s escape to the U.S. shows it may continue gaining strength. For more information, read “Will Brazil’s New President Open the Door to the Holy Roman Empire?”

Merz Seeks ‘New Stable Trade Order’ With Asia

In Singapore on Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for closer economic partnership between Europe and Asian “middle powers” such as Japan and South Korea to counteract the failing global order. Singapore was the first stop on his five-day tour, which will include Japan and South Korea.

Merz proposed greater partnership between the EU and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

• This trade agreement was signed in 2016 by Brunei, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam in Asia, and Australia, Canada, Chile, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The U.S. withdrew the following year, but the other nations have continued.
• If the European Union joins, the agreement could involve as much as one third of global trade.

Germany’s long-term goal, Merz stated, is a free-trade agreement between the EU and the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

• To Merz, a trade alliance with Asia is about Germany’s survival. “Our freedom, our sovereignty, our security and our prosperity are at stake,” he stated.

Merz claims that European and Asian nations can build a “new stable trade order” that is better equipped to “respond in a coordinated manner to violations of free and fair trade”—a slight against recent American trade policies as well as against long-standing Chinese trade practices.

• If the EU, Japan and South Korea work together, Merz claims they could become comparable to the U.S. in “knowledge, capacities, capabilities.”
• This is an anti-American partnership.

Germany also wants to make deals with the largest economy in Asia and perhaps the world.

• German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is also visiting China and has called on German businesses to retain confidence in China.
• While in Singapore, Merz said that “decoupling” from China would be a “big mistake.”

Isaiah 23 warns that a German-led European superpower will temporarily join a gigantic trade alliance with key Asian powers to economically besiege the United States and British Commonwealth. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote about the prophetic implications of this relationship:

[W]e believe there may be a brief alliance between the German-led Holy Roman Empire and certain Asian powers (Russia, China, Japan—the kings of the east). Should Europe, the resurrected Holy Roman Empire, find a way to take advantage—even for a moment—of key resources and strategic holdings of China, Russia and Japan, it would have more than enough power to besiege the Anglo-Saxon nations and enslave them.

Such comments from a German chancellor are a sign that this enormous alliance is forming now.

IN OTHER NEWS

Finland and Norway open talks with Putin: The leaders of Finland and Norway spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone yesterday to discuss ending the Ukraine war. Finnish President Alexander Stubb called the discussion “frank and substantive.” This follows the two leaders’ meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff in Oslo last week. Other European leaders criticized the call, which had not been coordinated with them. But Russia has probably already done a behind-the-scenes deal with Germany. High fuel prices are piling pressure on Europe to come to a public deal. Watch for Germany to lead Europe into Russia’s camp. For more, read “Germany vs. Russia—Behind the Headlines.”

Russia and China expand counterspace threats: Russia and China are expanding their military space capabilities, the United States Defense Intelligence Agency warned Monday in its latest assessment of threats to American assets in space. The third edition of “Challenges to Security in Space” calls attention to the “formidable spectrum of offensive capabilities” the two nations are developing to “degrade or destroy space services of other countries.” These include kinetic antisatellite weapons, directed-energy systems, electronic warfare tools and cyberweapons. The Trumpet has long sounded the alarm about the danger of America’s reliance—specifically that of its military—on computer technologies that are highly vulnerable to attack.