WorldPosted at: Nov 6 2026 10:26PM


Eisenkot receives backing of 67 lawmakers as Israeli President Isaac Herzog announces he will name next PM

Jerusalem, Nov 6 (UNI) Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot has secured the backing of a majority of incoming Knesset members to become Israel's next prime minister, receiving recommendations from 67 lawmakers during consultations with President Isaac Herzog on Thursday. The result puts him in a position to receive the mandate to attempt to form a government, although significant disagreements remain over the composition of a potential coalition.
Herzog said representatives of parties holding a combined 67 seats had recommended Eisenkot, while factions representing 46 lawmakers backed incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Despite the clear margin, the president said he would hold further discussions with party leaders before assigning the mandate on Sunday.
Yashar urged Herzog to appoint Eisenkot as soon as possible, pointing out that the 67 recommendations represented the largest number received by a candidate since 2015.
However, securing the recommendations does not guarantee a governing coalition.
The anti-Netanyahu camp comprises a 48-member, four-party Jewish-led opposition bloc and a 19-member grouping of the two Arab-led parties, the Joint List and Ra'am. All six parties recommended Eisenkot, but three of the Jewish-led factions have so far refused to enter a coalition with the Arab parties.
Netanyahu's outgoing coalition won 53 seats, but the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism (UTJ), which secured seven seats, declined to recommend him to Herzog, potentially leaving room for cooperation with other parties in a future government.
Channel 12 reported on Thursday that Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman had softened his longstanding opposition to sitting with Haredi parties and was open to partnering with UTJ if it helped remove Netanyahu from power.
Liberman reportedly believes an arrangement with the ultra-Orthodox factions would be preferable to relying on Arab-led parties. The reported proposal could involve a rotation agreement between him and Eisenkot for the prime minister's position, alongside negotiations over legislation governing military service for Haredi men.
The Joint List, which holds 11 seats, formally recommended Eisenkot while making clear that it intended to support a prospective minority government from outside rather than join a Zionist-led coalition.
Chairman Yousef Jabareen said the decision reflected Arab voters' demand for political change, pointing to racism, discrimination, crime and exclusion under the outgoing government.
"Our public really went out to vote for change," he said.
Jabareen acknowledged disagreements with Eisenkot, including over his political positions and what he described as his failure to take a sufficiently firm stand against incitement targeting Arab citizens during the election campaign.
"We are not choosing between good and better, but between what we see as bad and even worse," he said.
He added that the Joint List would seek political and diplomatic alternatives based on peace rather than military action, saying voters had not elected the party simply to remove Netanyahu and then allow him to return.
Joint List lawmaker Ahmad Tibi also said the alliance was prepared to support a minority government from outside but did not want to provide temporary backing to an administration that could collapse within months.
"If we support a government from outside, we don't want to give it a safety net only to bring it down a month, two months or three months later," he said.
Tibi stressed the influence the party would wield in the incoming parliament, saying: "No parliamentary or political move in the Knesset can happen without the Joint List."
Ra'am chairman Mansour Abbas, meanwhile, stopped short of explicitly recognising Hamas as a terrorist organisation during his meeting with Herzog, despite condemning terrorism and political violence and calling for Hamas to be disarmed and removed from power.
Recognition of Hamas as a terrorist organisation is one of Eisenkot's conditions for parties seeking to join his prospective government.
Abbas nevertheless expressed hope that Eisenkot would form a "good government", recalling Ra'am's participation in the government led by Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett in 2021.
He told Herzog that its worst day had been "infinitely better than the fully right-wing government" in terms of national and personal security, as well as civil affairs.
Asked whether Ra'am's presence would prevent a government from taking action against terrorism, Abbas rejected the suggestion.
"To claim that our presence in a government would prevent a cabinet or government from defending Israeli citizens is not right," he said.
He also questioned why Arab politicians were repeatedly subjected to demands to prove their loyalty, arguing that Jewish lawmakers faced no equivalent requirements.
Abbas pointed out that no Ra'am lawmaker had been charged or convicted of terrorism-related offences, while Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben Gvir was convicted in 2007 of incitement to racism and supporting a Jewish terrorist organisation.
Ra'am's No. 2, Yoav Segalovitz, Israel's first Jewish candidate for the Islamist party, described the political discourse as "toxic", blaming Netanyahu for contributing to it.
"The only one that is a terror supporter is Itamar Ben Gvir, who sits in his government and was convicted," he said.
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