To Israelis, the two leading contenders after the election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff, offer sharply different personalities, styles and even paths to the future.

But to the rest of the world, they don’t seem substantially different in their approach to Israel’s security or in their opposition to a Palestinian state.

If neither can form a government, Mr. Netanyahu could remain as a caretaker prime minister for weeks or months to come. In this period of instability, there is concern, analysts say, that settler violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank will increase and that Mr. Netanyahu will push President Trump to start bombing Iran again.

If Mr. Eisenkot manages to emerge as prime minister, Israel’s overall foreign policy is not expected to shift much. The tone may be more accommodating on the margins, but few expect Israel to embrace a two-state solution to establish an independent Palestine or abandon its active conflicts with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Islamic Republic in Iran.

All that means Israel will still find itself increasingly isolated internationally.

The vote sends a message to the world that the current government’s approach to the region, which has prompted an international backlash, “is not just a Bibi problem,” said Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, a former American diplomat now at the Atlantic Council, referring to Mr. Netanyahu. “It represents today’s Israel writ large.”