Former military chief Gadi Eisenkot has emerged as the favourite to form Israel’s next government after winning the backing of 67 members of the Knesset, against 46 for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, following two days of consultations with President Isaac Herzog.
The recommendations came after the 27 October election, the first since the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks, produced no outright winner. Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, against 48 for the bloc led by Eisenkot, 66, the former chief of the Israeli General Staff who leads the Yashar party.
The decisive shift came on Thursday, 5 November, when Israel’s two Arab-majority parties, the Joint List with 11 seats and Ra’am with eight, announced they would recommend Eisenkot. Arab parties won a record 19 seats in the election. United Torah Judaism, which had backed Netanyahu in the previous five elections, declined to recommend any candidate.
President Herzog said he would announce on Sunday which lawmaker will be given the mandate to form a government. Whoever receives it will have 28 days to build a coalition, with a possible 14-day extension.
A majority of recommendations is not the same as a governing majority, however. Several parties that recommended Eisenkot have not agreed to join his government, and Eisenkot is pressing a plan for a minority emergency government backed from outside parliament by Arab and ultra-Orthodox parties. Netanyahu remains prime minister in a caretaker government until a new coalition is formed.
Source: Times of Israel — https://www.timesofisrael.com/eisenkot-bolstered-by-pm-recommendations-but-still-well-short-of-a-government/amp/
