It’s less an election result than a philosophical puzzle: what happens when a win contains a loss, a loss contains a win and the two collide? That’s the question posed by the confused and confusing outcome of this week’s Israeli election, one that, despite its murky uncertainty, offers clear, sharp lessons – both for that country and for those locked in combat with nationalist populists across the globe.

Start with the result that has simultaneously handed Benjamin Netanyahu a devastating defeat and a strong chance of staying on as prime minister, extending a run that has seen him lead Israel, on and off, for more than 19 of the past 30 years. The defeat is clear enough. At a stroke, his parliamentary majority was wiped out. Before Tuesday, the parties that together comprised his ruling coalition controlled 68 of the Knesset’s 120 seats: that tally has now shrunk to just 53, far short of the 61 seats needed for power. That’s a loss in anybody’s language.

And yet, Netanyahu does not look or sound like a man defeated. That’s because he knows that while the parties arrayed against him won many more seats than he did – 67 to his 53 – their chances of forming a government are slim. If they fail, one or two of them might peel away and enter a so-called national-unity government – under Netanyahu as PM – or there will have to be fresh elections, ones from which, most analysts agree, Netanyahu would emerge stronger.

The opposition’s problem is not arithmetical. It goes much deeper. Put simply, a big chunk of the anti-Netanyahu seats were won by parties that chiefly represent the one in five Israeli citizens who are Palestinian. This was the big twist of Tuesday’s election, a huge surge in turnout for what Israelis refer to as the Arab parties. Usually, far more Jewish than Arab Israelis participate in the country’s elections, but this year that pattern was flipped: turnout in Palestinian communities inside Israel hit 80%. The result is a record total of 19 seats for Arab-led parties. The anti-Netanyahu bloc cannot form a........

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