TEL AVIV — This is a good year for Israelis who love political statistics. This month, Benjamin Netanyahu surpassed Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, to become the country’s longest-serving prime minister. On May 30, the Knesset dissolved itself a month after it was sworn in, making its parliamentary term the shortest in Israel’s history. This year will be the first ever with two Election Days, the one in April, the second in September.

But we might be ready to set an even more impressive record: a third election.

Explaining why Israel was forced to have a second round is technically simple: Mr. Netanyahu needed the support of 61 members of the Knesset to form a ruling coalition, but only 60 were willing to join. No other party was even close to getting this number of supporters. Trying for a new parliament was the obvious, if unhappy, solution.

A do-over election should mean one of two things. Either more people will vote for a coalition led by Mr. Netanyahu, or more people will vote for a coalition led by someone else. Unfortunately, according to the polls, neither is about to happen.

The coalition Mr. Netanyahu wishes to have is the same one he’s always relied on, with his Likud party at the helm and right-wing and religious parties as allies. This constellation of parties is expected to take fewer than 61 seats. But the coalition of those wanting to unseat Mr. Netanyahu has no realistic path to forming a government, either. For now, the voters cannot be convinced to move from one political bloc to the other. Right-wing voters stay on the right, centrists and leftists stay on the center-left. No one seems to be able to break the stalemate.