Israel’s President Isaac Herzog has given opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot the first chance to build a governing coalition, a decision that puts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future in doubt. Herzog informed Eisenkot of the choice on Saturday evening and was set to hand him the formal mandate at a ceremony at the president’s residence in Jerusalem on Sunday.
The move follows an October 27 election in which neither camp won a parliamentary majority. Eisenkot, a former military chief of staff who leads the centrist Yashar party, now has 28 days to secure a coalition, with the possibility of a 14-day extension — up to six weeks in total to reach the 61 seats needed in the 120-member Knesset.
- Key Point: Eisenkot received 67 recommendations from Knesset members, while Netanyahu received 46, according to the president’s office.
- Key Point: Netanyahu’s Likud won 27 seats to Yashar’s 21, but his right-wing and religious bloc holds 53 seats against 48 for Eisenkot’s four-party alliance.
- Key Point: Arab-led parties won a record 19 seats and backed Eisenkot, positioning them as potential kingmakers despite his campaign pledge not to govern with them.
- Key Point: If Eisenkot fails, Herzog can nominate another lawmaker; a second failure would likely trigger fresh elections.
A mandate built on a narrow but clear majority
Herzog made the decision after a week of consultations with party delegations from the incoming Knesset. He said the talks had been candid and had surfaced the many voices within Israeli society, adding that they underscored the equal standing of all citizens. He noted that Eisenkot had drawn the broadest support among lawmakers on the question of who should try to govern.
The challenges we face are giant. Iran is not waiting a second in its threats. We have to start building a future in the region and proceed with Trump’s 20-point plan in Gaza, as well as negotiating the future with Lebanon and other neighbors.
Herzog said Israel needs a stable government to confront those challenges and that he expected Eisenkot to work for a cabinet serving every segment of the population. The president has wide discretion in choosing a candidate and is not obliged to pick the leader of the largest party.
Eisenkot responded that he is committed to forming a national emergency government. In a post on X, he wrote that the moment had arrived to do so and that he would do everything possible to prove worthy of the task. He also said Israel cannot afford endless election cycles and that he would formally approach every Knesset member, as parties and as individuals, to open talks.
The arithmetic of a fragile coalition
Eisenkot’s path to power runs through parties that his own bloc once vowed not to sit with. The two Arab-led alliances — the United Arab List, known as Ra’am, and the Joint List — together hold 19 seats after a surge in turnout among Arab and Palestinian citizens, who make up roughly a fifth of the population. Both endorsed Eisenkot for the mandate.
Ra’am made history in 2021 as the first Arab party to join an Israeli coalition, under an agreement with Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. The Joint List has never been part of a governing coalition, though its politicians backed Yitzhak Rabin’s government from the opposition during the Oslo Accords period, a term cut short by his assassination in November 1995.
During the campaign, Eisenkot and nearly every member of his bloc ruled out relying on Arab parties to govern. A poll by the Hebrew University’s Accord Center two days after the vote found that 59 percent of Zionist opposition voters preferred a government backed by Ra’am, with the Joint List abstaining, over any alternative. Eisenkot has set conditions for Arab participation, including recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and a declaration that Hamas is a terrorist organization. The more conservative Yisrael Beiteinu party has already said it will not join a coalition with Arab-led parties.
Another route would run through the ultra-Orthodox parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas, which hold seven seats each and would give Eisenkot exactly 61. But both fiercely oppose legislation to end draft exemptions for young ultra-Orthodox men, a central plank of Eisenkot’s campaign, and Shas supporters lean toward Netanyahu, with party leader Arye Deri among the premier’s closest political allies.
A national unity arrangement with Likud remains theoretically possible. The two men served together in the war cabinet that followed the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, before Eisenkot left and accused Netanyahu of failing to advance toward ending the Gaza war and freeing hostages. Eisenkot lost his son Gal, a reservist, and two nephews in the fighting. Deep disagreements persist over draft exemptions and over Netanyahu’s refusal to accept a formal inquiry into the security failures of October 7.
Netanyahu’s counter-campaign and the Arab party question
Hours before Herzog’s announcement, Netanyahu issued a video statement calling for a national unity government and warning that a cabinet dependent on Arab-led parties would undermine the state from within. He has repeatedly claimed, without substantial evidence, that Arab parties stole the election. The Central Elections Committee and Herzog have said the vote was valid. The Shin Bet security agency has opened a probe into possible foreign interference, which officials say would not have changed the outcome.
Eisenkot’s party dismissed the video as hysterical and urged Likud members to break with what it called radical parties in the prime minister’s base. Ahmad Tibi, a senior Joint List figure, said the president’s decision was expected and that he believed Eisenkot was heading toward a minority government sustained from outside by Arab parties. Tibi said the priority was removing Netanyahu, along with far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, even if the result would not be an ideal government for Arab citizens.
The stakes extend well beyond coalition arithmetic. Netanyahu’s outgoing coalition includes Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism, which won 13 seats and advocate annexing the West Bank, rebuilding Israeli settlements in Gaza and a plan to move the enclave’s 2.1 million Palestinians abroad. Those parties have also backed violent settlers attacking Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Eisenkot has condemned settler violence, describing recent incidents as Jewish terror enabled by government policy, and has vowed to crack down on perpetrators. He has also pledged to end Hamas rule in Gaza within 18 months, a contrast with the current government’s approach under the US-brokered ceasefire, which envisions a board of technocrats taking over the enclave. Like Netanyahu, he opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.
Eisenkot, 66, commanded the military from 2015 to 2019 and founded Yashar on an anti-corruption and government reform platform. He has cast himself as a unifying figure after years of divisive rule. Precedent exists for a power-sharing deal: in 2020, after three deadlocked elections, Netanyahu and Benny Gantz agreed to rotate the premiership. Between 2019 and 2022 Israel held five elections as coalition-building repeatedly failed.
What happens next will be decided in closed negotiating rooms over the coming weeks. Eisenkot must reconcile campaign promises with the arithmetic of a fractured Knesset, and every concession risks alienating part of the alliance that endorsed him. If he falls short, Herzog can hand the mandate to another lawmaker — widely expected to be Netanyahu — and a second failure would send Israelis back to the polls, with the prime minister remaining in a caretaker role in the interim. The outcome will shape not only who governs Israel but the direction of its war in Gaza, its posture toward the West Bank and its dealings with Washington and regional neighbors.