Israel’s president chose Gadi Eisenkot, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biggest rival, to try to form a new government, after a deadlocked election that left neither with a clear path to power.
Isaac Herzog’s office said he had informed Eisenkot, the leader of the Yashar party, on Saturday evening “of his intention to task him with forming a government.”
He added that the official appointment would take place in an official ceremony on Sunday at the president’s residence in Jerusalem.
“Now is the time to form an emergency national government. I will do everything to make us worthy of it,” Eisenkot wrote on X in his first reaction to the announcement of his designation.
Netanyahu is “fighting to retain power” after his religious-nationalist coalition lost its majority in the Oct. 27 election but nonetheless emerged as the largest bloc “in Parliament.”
If Eisenkot succeeds in forming a coalition, he would succeed Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, as prime minister.
Eisenkot’s vast opposition bloc won 48 of the 120 seats in Israel’s parliament in October’s elections, while Netanyahu’s camp took 53, leaving neither with a majority.
During the party’s consultations with Herzog, Eisenkot, 66, received support from the two Arab-majority lists, which can now play the role of kingmakers after making unprecedented gains in the vote.
But it remains to be determined whether Eisenkot’s bloc would accept support from Arab lists to form a government.
Eisenkot, military chief of staff from 2015 to 2019, set out to unite Israelis after Netanyahu’s controversial term, during which the country shifted sharply to the right.
He has vowed to crack down on extremist West Bank settlers who have attacked Palestinians with impunity, calling recent incidents “Jewish terrorism” encouraged by Netanyahu’s government.
But the soldier is not a pacifist. He opposes the creation of a Palestinian state and has pledged to end Hamas’ rule in Gaza and destroy the Islamist movement’s military wing.
Commanding the army during the 2006 war against Hezbollah, Eizenkot designed the “Dahiya doctrine.” The idea, named after a Beirut suburb heavily damaged in that war, involves Israel pledging to use massive force against civilian infrastructure in areas controlled by the Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah.
Gn world
