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Key takeaways
- Five opposition leaders agreed in Herzliya on 3 November to recommend Gadi Eisenkot to President Herzog for the first mandate.
- The opposition holds 48 seats and needs 61; the leaders have not settled whether to rely on Arab-led parties.
- Herzog's consultations open 4 November; recommendations are not binding, and the nominee then has 28 days, extendable by 14.
Five Israeli opposition leaders met in Herzliya on Tuesday, 3 November. They agreed that their parties will recommend Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, to President Isaac Herzog for the first mandate to form a government. The meeting lasted about 70 minutes, Ynet reported. It was their first joint meeting since the 27 October election. Eisenkot (Yashar), former prime minister Naftali Bennett (Together), Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu), Yair Golan (the Democrats) and outgoing opposition leader Yair Lapid attended.
A joint statement said negotiating teams "will immediately begin drafting policy guidelines and coalition agreements." The aim, it said, is to finish quickly and "spar[e] Israel another election." Anadolu quoted Bennett, speaking to the public broadcaster KAN at the end of the meeting: "We have no time. We must move extremely quickly…" The four opposition parties hold 48 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. A majority needs 61.
The principles and the count
The statement said the party leaders agreed on the need to establish a Zionist government as soon as possible, based on four principles Eisenkot set out on Saturday (Jerusalem Post). According to Al Jazeera and the Jerusalem Post, every party in it must recognise Israel as a Jewish state, label Hamas a terrorist group, accept national service and conscription obligations, and back the elimination of Hamas's military and governing capabilities in Gaza. Al Jazeera described them as "conditions that could exclude some Arab-led parties."
The election left both camps short. Netanyahu's bloc won 53 seats, with Likud the largest party at 27. That is down from 68 in the outgoing Knesset, NDTV and the Guardian reported. Arab-led parties won a record 19: the Joint List 11 and Ra'am 8. Yashar took 21, the most in the opposition camp. The blocs stayed locked, as Crisis.Zone's 18 October analysis of Trump's endorsement of Netanyahu argued they would.
On Monday, 2 November, Netanyahu called for a "broad national government" under his leadership. He ruled out Arab-majority lists. Al Jazeera reported that no opposition leader has expressed openness to joining him.
Observers are reading: why the 67-seat arithmetic, the Haredi alternative and the Joint List's vote-but-not-join position pull in different directions.
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What happens next
Herzog's consultations open on Wednesday, 4 November, at 5 p.m. Parties are heard in ascending order of size "to encourage thinking outside the box," the President's Office said. Likud speaks last, on Thursday evening. Recommendations are not binding. The president may pick whoever has the best chance of forming a government, the Jerusalem Post reported. The nominee then has 28 days, extendable by 14, France 24 reported. The new Knesset is set to be sworn in on 10 November, the Times of Israel reported. Herzog has said he will not address Netanyahu's pardon request until efforts to reach a deal are exhausted. Netanyahu denies all charges in his corruption trial.
Netanyahu and Likud have claimed the vote was "stolen" by Arab parties with foreign funding. Al Jazeera says they did so repeatedly and without proof. Justice Noam Sohlberg, who heads the Central Elections Committee, said on Sunday that even substantiated suspicions would not undermine the integrity of the election results as a whole.
Analysts also flag an outside risk. Yossi Mekelberg of Chatham House said there is "no more popular an emergency than one involving Iran." Crisis.Zone's report on the stalled US-Iran mediation covers that file.
In this analysis, the test is less whom the opposition names than whom it is willing to count. Both blocs have fenced off the 19 seats that decide the outcome.
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