Israeli President Isaac Herzog has decided to hand Gadi Eisenkot — not Benjamin Netanyahu — the task of forming the country's next government. Herzog informed Eisenkot of the choice on Saturday evening, November 7, and the formal mandate ceremony is set for Sunday, November 8, at the President's Residence in Jerusalem.
For the first time in more than a decade, the decision strips Netanyahu of first claim on building an Israeli government. He stays on as caretaker prime minister while the negotiations run.
67 to 46
The president's choice rests on the recommendations the 120 elected lawmakers submit after an election. Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces and now leader of the Yashar party, gathered 67 recommendations. Netanyahu got 46.
Among those 67 are the members of the Arab-led parties, which are not part of Eisenkot's alliance and whose endorsement carries no commitment to join a government.
The arithmetic of 61
Eisenkot has 28 days to present a coalition, a deadline the president may extend by 14 more. The required majority is 61 of the Knesset's 120 seats — and that is where the arithmetic tightens.
In the October 27 election, the four-party alliance led by Eisenkot won 48 seats. The right-wing and religious bloc tied to Netanyahu took 53. The Arab-led parties posted their best result ever, with 19 seats. Neither side reached 61 on its own.
Eisenkot has ruled out governing in coalition with the Arab-led parties. That leaves him two routes: drawing in the two ultra-Orthodox parties — United Torah Judaism and Shas, which together would give him exactly 61 — or forming a minority government, approved in a confidence vote and supported from the outside. On Saturday, Shas denied reports that it would join an Eisenkot coalition.
Ahmad Tibi of the Joint List, which won 11 seats, called Herzog's decision "expected" and said he expects precisely a minority government with outside backing from the Arab-led parties — in his words, not a "dream government", but the way to remove Netanyahu's coalition from power.
What Netanyahu said
Netanyahu responded in a prerecorded video, saying an opposition government backed by the Arab-led parties would "dismantle the state of Israel from within".
If Eisenkot fails
The path laid out in Israeli law is long. If Eisenkot's deadline passes without a government, Herzog has three days to decide whether to hand the task to another lawmaker, who would get 28 days with no extension. If that also fails, a group of at least 61 members of the Knesset may nominate a name, with a final 14 days to try. If nothing works, the Knesset is dissolved and a new election is called within 90 days, with Netanyahu remaining as caretaker prime minister until then.
With information from Al Jazeera, The Jerusalem Post, NPR and The Washington Post.
