Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot pledged Saturday to quickly exercise the parliamentary majority in the new Knesset, saying Israelis voted decisively against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in last week’s elections.
Anti-Netanyahu parties won 67 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, but anti-Netanyahu Zionist parties won only 48, with the other 19 going to two Arab parties, complicating future Prime Minister Eisenkot’s path to the premiership, while leaving Netanyahu, whose outgoing coalition won 53 seats, also unable to build a majority government.
“No matter how you look at the numbers, a majority of Israeli citizens, by a margin of more than half a million votes, voted against the October 7 government and the fraud plan, and in favor of change,” Eisenkot said in a statement, pledging to immediately advance legislation establishing a state commission of inquiry into the failures that led to the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, to introduce compulsory service for all Israelis and to repeal the controversial judicial reform laws adopted by Hamas. outgoing government.
“Don’t let anyone mislead you: in the State of Israel, it is the Knesset that gives its confidence to the government, and not the other way around,” he stressed, asserting that the election results are clear, “even if some try to cast doubt on them.”
His remarks came as Netanyahu and his allies questioned Tuesday’s election results citing unsubstantiated allegations of foreign interference, after losing their parliamentary majority.
Amid reports that Netanyahu may launch a war with Iran to extend his grip on power, Eisenkot warned that until a new government is sworn in, he would support military operations “only in cases involving direct and immediate threats to Israel that cannot wait.”
A new round of fighting with Iran would be expected to result in retaliatory missile attacks on Israel, hampering attempts to form a new coalition or transfer power to a new government.
Eisenkot also reiterated his goal of forming a broad “Zionist and statesmanlike government,” saying any lawmaker willing to accept his long-standing conditions “is a potential partner,” while emphasizing the need for an “extraordinary effort” to avoid new elections and “yet another protracted political crisis.” – apparently indicating a potential willingness to cooperate with Arab parties and possible separatist MPs from current coalition members.
Eisenkot listed these conditions as follows: recognizing Israel as a Jewish, democratic, liberal and egalitarian state; commitment to the values set out in the country’s Declaration of Independence; compulsory national service for all citizens, whether in the military or civilian context; and recognizing Hamas as a terrorist organization as well as the need to destroy its military and governance capabilities in the Gaza Strip.
“The door to the government that we will establish is open to any elected official who accepts these principles,” he declared.
The election saw the opposition win 67 seats to the coalition’s 53. However, these 67 seats are made up of 48 seats for Zionist parties and 19 seats for non-Zionist Arab parties, with which most Jewish opposition party leaders have previously stated that they will not cooperate. Netanyahu’s Likud party won 27 seats, while Eisenkot’s Yashar was second with 21 seats, leaving neither bloc on track to secure a 61-seat majority.
Eisenkot’s Yashar said in a statement that party members had received phone calls during the day from ministers and lawmakers in Netanyahu’s Likud, and said among those he claimed to have been seeking were Education Minister Yoav Kisch and the deputy minister in the prime minister’s office Almog Cohen.
“There is clearly hysteria within Likud,” the statement said, apparently referring to the ruling party’s efforts to pressure members of anti-Netanyahu parties to defect and thereby gather enough support to form a majority.
Cohen quickly dismissed the claim, insisting in a statement that he had not spoken with any members of Yashar and that the claims were “fake news.”
Opposition meetings
Earlier, Yair Lapid, B’Yachad’s number 2, said they had met with Eisenkot, their first publicly acknowledged meeting since last week’s elections.
Lapid said the two discussed the election results “and coordinating actions as part of a shared commitment to fulfilling the will of the voter.”
Furthermore, the leader of the opposition Yisrael Beytenu party, Avigdor Liberman, claimed to have received a number of requests to become speaker of the Knesset, without specifying from whom.
“The evildoers do not rest for a moment,” Liberman wrote on
Liberman’s message came after Israeli television reported Friday that opposition figures were considering ousting Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana of Likud during the November 10 parliamentary swearing-in.
Veteran Arab MP Ahmad Tibi, No. 2 in the Joint List alliance, said his party was ready to support anti-Netanyahu Zionist parties in setting up a government to replace the outgoing coalition, but stressed he did not want to be part of the government itself.
Tibi’s party won 11 seats; the other Arab party present in the elections, Ra’am, won eight seats. Between them, they have enough seats to give either bloc a clear majority.
On the outgoing coalition side, lawmakers from the ultra-Orthodox Degel Hatorah faction within the United Torah Judaism party were scheduled to meet with their spiritual leaders, Rabbi Dov Lando and Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, on Saturday evening, according to Israeli media.
Although the meeting is officially considered a meeting, it comes after reports on Friday that figures in the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party are reportedly considering offering support to a minority government led by Eisenkot without formally joining his coalition.
Along with its other member faction, Agudath Hatorah, the UTJ party won seven seats in the elections.
Herzog consultations Wednesday
President Isaac Herzog will begin a meeting with party representatives on Wednesday for talks during which they will tell him which candidate they support in an attempt to form a government.
The meetings will take place at the president’s residence in Jerusalem and will be broadcast live, Haaretz reported. Depending on how long the process takes, the candidate Herzog chooses to make his first attempt will already begin his efforts next weekend or early the following week, the report estimates.
The talks with Herzog will begin after the chairman of the Central Election Commission, Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, formally presented Herzog with the election results, also on Wednesday.
As president, Herzog has the power to choose who gets the first chance to form a government. Netanyahu and Eisenkot have promised they will try to form the next government.
Although by law he must consult the leaders of all parties in the Knesset before making a decision, historically, presidents have often chosen the leader of the largest faction to go first, in this case the Likud party. However, the most important test is which lawmaker gets the most endorsements as prime minister from fellow MPs.
Regardless of the president’s choice, that party leader would have 28 days to form a government and could request an additional 14 days if he said he needed more time to finalize a coalition.
If those efforts failed, Herzog could hand the coalition-forming mandate to another candidate, and that person would then have 28 days to form a government, with no possibility of extension.
Failing that, there remains one last opportunity to form a government: a majority of 61 deputies could recommend to the president another candidate to try to form a government, with a maximum of 14 days for such an effort. If this did not work, new elections would be called.
Tuesday’s elections came four years after the end of a four-year period in which Israel went to the polls five times, the first four failing to produce stable governments.
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