be unprecedented key factors today, will ara arab-israelis turn out to vote joining me now is nbc s chief global correspondent bill neely in tel aviv. election day in israel is always so confusing and tumultuous, issues of voter access, voter suppression with the minority arabs, what are you hearing? reporter: yeah, not to mention the future of the country, andrea. and i don t mean that just in a security sense right reporter: but the whole battle between the ultraortho box and secular israelis it s all being played out in this election, two hours of voting left. it s looking close indeed with the turnout about the same as last time. if you remember the last time in april, only 15,000 votes separated benny gantz, the main opposition leader, from prime
we re covering the israeli elections now. i want to go right back to tel aviv nbc news chief global correspondent bill neely has the latest, where we stand on the israeli election, even in the half an hour since we ve spoke ben, there have been some developments, bill. reporter: yes, ali, so just to recap, this is israel s second election in five months and it does appear as if israel s longest serving prime minister benjamin netanyahu has fallen short in his attempt to remain prime minister. these are just exit polls. the real votes are being counted now. but it does look like he has no immediate path to victory. and just to recap what the three television networks here are saying, is that it looks like it s a dead heat in the numbers of seats that both netanyahu and his main opponent, benny gantz, have, in israel s 120-seat
parliament they got roughly 31, 32, 33, seats each, but also a dead heat in the sense of the coalitions that both men can build. the blocs, benjamin netanyahu s right-wing bloc, benny gantz s center-left bloc appear to be more or less in a heat as well it does appear the victoring if you like, in the election is the one who might well be kingmaker, a man who used to be a nightclub bouncer once but then went on to be a defense minister and foreign minister, victor lieberman. it would appear he s got eight to ten seats he could be the one who decides as well, of course, israel s president, who will be israel s leader going forward. i caution our viewers it may take a couple days before we see this all settle in it is, after all, israeli politics bill neely, nbc s chief global correspondent in tel aviv.
energy independent. crude oil prices are skyrocketing. national security officials will meet at the white house, of course all of this with no permanent national security in place. we want to go to the region. chief global correspondent bill neely joins us live and ali is posted up in london. boy, this escalated very quickly over the last 48 hours. big picture, where does it go from here? reporter: that s a very good question. i think everyone is looking at saudi arabia s reaction and certainly what president trump suggested in his tweet overnight, he ll be looking to the kingdom to see who they re blaming. so far saudi arabia has neither named nor blamed its arch enemy iran. they will be investigating this very hard, because their air defenses were so come
is meant to sway kavanaugh s opinions on the bench adding quote, this is the game they play. fake and corrupt news is working overtime, #protectkavanaugh. iran is rejecting u.s. accusations that it was behind this week s on saudi oil facilities. riyadh and washington are pushing to respond to the attacks. nbc news chief global correspondent bill neely has more. reporter: a blame game and rising tension after the biggest attack on the saudi oil industry in decades. iranian backed rebels from yemen releasing this propaganda video to bolster their claim that ten drones hit two saudi installations. they rejected secretary of state mike pompeo s claim that iran itself had attacked the world s energy supply. iran s foreign minister critical, too, tweeting having failed at maximum pressure, secretary pompeo is turning to