“His parliamentary majority is going to be very shaky with only 61 or 62 seats— if he loses even one of the religious parties over any issue, he will be out of power.”
He wouldn’t be out of power. It would likely just force another election. I think he’s probably just going to try to bring the moderate parties into government. There’s no way he wants to have to rely on the welfare hungry religious parties to stay in power. The exit polls show the coalition partners have 62 votes this time, down from the 66 votes they had when Kadima left the coalition last year. That’s enough to keep control of government, but for the stake of stability Netanyahu needs to work at a deal with the new moderate party or there’ll be another set of elections by the summer.
Exit polls.
IOW - bullcrap.