Netanyahu extends olive branch, but unity government prospects dim

All opposition leaders have announced they would back Eisenkot to lead the next government.

By David Isaac, JNS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached across the aisle on Monday evening, offering to form a unity government with himself at its head.

But the chances are slim given the opposition’s continued determination to oust him from office.

“The public in Israel does not want a government that depends on Ra’am and the Joint List—parties that support terrorism and reject the existence of the Jewish state,” Netanyahu posted to X on Monday, referring to the two Arab parties.

“A clear majority in the Jewish public chose the Likud as the largest party and me, as prime minister, to lead the next government. We aspire to form a broad government with our partners and with any party that wishes to do so and does not support terrorism. I am open to holding discussions on the matter,” he said.

Opposition leaders have interpreted the results differently, insisting the Likud was handed a resounding defeat, though the result is a political stalemate as neither bloc won enough Knesset seats to form a government.

Netanyahu’s coalition has 53 to the opposition’s 48. Likud remains the largest party with 27 Knesset seats to Yashar’s 21.

The removal of Netanyahu was itself an issue during the campaign, with Eisenkot insisting that he would never work with him.

Five days before the election, Eisenkot felt compelled to push back on reports that he would join with Netanyahu.

“I make an unequivocal commitment that I will not sit under Netanyahu, not even in a rotation [power-sharing government],” he told Israeli radio station 103FM. “If that happens, I will resign an hour later.”

By Tuesday, all opposition leaders had announced they would back Eisenkot to lead the next government.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who is tasked with choosing the candidate most likely to succeed in forming a government, starts meeting with Knesset factions on Wednesday.

If a unity government is out of the question, Eisenkot’s options are limited to working with haredi and Arab parties.

In the first scenario, he could build a coalition with the help of one haredi party and one Arab party. United Torah Judaism and Ra’am have signaled their willingness to work with Eisenkot.

In the second scenario, Eisenkot would join with two Arab parties, Ra’am and the Joint List. In the third, these parties would support a minority government.

This means Eisenkot would not have the minimum 61 seats, but these parties would support it from without by abstaining from voting against it.

Minority governments have existed in the past. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, after the Shas Party left his coalition in September 1993, led a minority government.

Rabin continued to govern thanks to outside support from Arab parties. But a minority government has never been formed immediately following an election.

The UTJ has signaled its willingness to support an opposition-led government without formally joining. So has the Joint List.

Its leader, Yousef Jabareen, told CNN‘s Christiane Amanpour on Monday, “We see an opportunity to oust Netanyahu. Hopefully, the opposition leaders have the courage to follow the late Rabin in ’92 and to say that they are ready to cooperate with the Arab parties.”

In all three scenarios, Eisenkot would run up against principles he set forth during his campaign, namely, only to work with parties that accept universal conscription (UTJ does not) and which recognize Hamas as a terror organization whose military and governing power in the Gaza Strip must be destroyed (the Joint List will not).

Ra’am may agree to this demand, though it hasn’t condemned Hamas as a terror group yet.

Its leader, Mansour Abbas, lost his temper and refused to do so during an interview with Israeli radio station Kan Reshet Bet in July.

However, he has condemned the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and has called on Palestinian factions to lay down their arms and participate in diplomacy.

Eisenkot faces further obstacles from within his coalition. Avigdor Liberman of the Israel Beiteinu Party said he would not participate in a minority government or in one that included the Arab parties.

Naftali Bennett of the B’Yachad Party said in September that he also wouldn’t participate with the Arabs in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Liberman has also rejected working with haredi parties, which he termed “anti-Zionist elements.”

However, on Tuesday, Liberman expressed optimism that a government could be formed.

“In the political situation that has emerged, there is sufficient room for maneuver, and with proper navigation, it is possible to swiftly establish a functioning and stable government without Ra’am and the Joint List,” he said.

The Arab parties won an unprecedented 19 seats in last Tuesday’s elections, though their success has been marred by charges of foreign intervention by Qatar and Turkey.

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) is investigating. Israeli police are separately investigating local bribery efforts. Several arrests have been made.

Netanyahu and his coalition partners have demanded a full investigation while the opposition has been loath to acknowledge any fraud, instead accusing Netanyahu of undermining democracy.

“They continue with full force in the destructive and violent delegitimization assault on the election results and the Central Elections Committee,” Eisenkot posted to social media on Monday.

“This is a direct attack on Israeli democracy, which sharpens the grave danger posed by the continued rule of Likud and Netanyahu and their grip on the centers of power and government.”

“There is only one reason that Netanyahu and his emissaries are doing everything to undermine the election results: they lost,” Lapid echoed on Monday.

“Now they are doing everything, protesting, inventing conspiracy theories, challenging the results of democratic elections.”

Ynet reported that Liberman told reporters at his party’s headquarters in Modi’in on Monday that the Shin Bet was aligning too closely with the Likud Party and that there had been no vote-tampering.

“The Palestinian Authority caused radicalization, but the election was not stolen, and there is no concern about fraud or any need to review the election results,” he said.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of the Otzma Yehudit Party posted to X on Tuesday that the Palestinian Authority is a foreign entity and that if Liberman has evidence of its interference, he should present it before the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee and the Central Elections Committee.

“Furthermore, I call on him to join the demand to freeze the approval of the election results until a full and thorough investigation of the suspicions,” Ben-Gvir said.

In a joint video statement on Sunday evening, Central Elections Committee chairman Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, Israel’s Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara, and Shin Bet director David Zini addressed the Shin Bet investigation, saying that it “will not affect the final results to be submitted to the president.”

“Our position is that even if the suspicions are substantiated, this would not undermine the integrity of the electoral process or the election results as a whole,” he said.