Faction recommendations
Factions representing 67 Knesset members recommended Yashar! chairman Gadi Eisenkot to form the next government, compared with 46 for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
After consulting all factions elected to the 26th Knesset, President Isaac Herzog said he plans to assign the mandate Sunday. He will first speak with some party leaders to assess who can form a government given divisions within and between the blocs.
The Democrats and Ra’am backed Eisenkot. Sami Abu Shehadeh told Kan Bet the Joint List would do so, and Beyachad pledged to help Eisenkot form a government quickly. Likud and Otzma Yehudit backed Netanyahu. United Torah Judaism declined to recommend anyone.
Yashar! said Eisenkot had secured an absolute majority of recommendations and the most for any candidate since 2015. It urged Herzog to give him the mandate promptly to form a national emergency government, citing security and rebuilding needs. It described Netanyahu’s government as a minority caretaker, argued he had lost public confidence and warned of another election.
Coalition talks
Ra’am’s Mansour Abbas urged Eisenkot to form even a temporary government and expand it later.
Amit Segal raised the possibility that the Change Bloc would present minority-government guidelines Tuesday and seek a vote roughly 24 hours later. He suggested Bennett and Lieberman might hesitate to vote against it if doing so kept Netanyahu in power.
Segal said Lieberman remained firmly opposed, Bennett had been silent since the elections, and the idea faced resistance in Yashar!. He said other members of Yashar! and Beyachad also oppose swearing in a government with Arab-party votes.
Herzog questioned how a minority government could function, noting that the government of change had been unable even to plant trees in the Negev.
The Joint List chairman said Yair Golan told him the Change Bloc’s stance toward Arab parties had not changed. Jabareen said,
“From now on, any political coalition formed in the Knesset will need us.”
Asked how the Joint List would act in a major military conflict, its chairman said voters had elected the faction to bring down Netanyahu and that returning him to power would defeat that purpose.
Segal also pointed to the Joint List’s platform opposing the Israelization of Arab citizens after Tibi did not directly answer Herzog’s question about whether Arab society had undergone Israelization since October 7.
Netanyahu argued that a government relying on parties he accused of supporting terrorism could not confront radical Islam. He called for a broad Likud-led government with the national bloc and willing Zionist parties.
Segal reported that Lieberman lifted his veto on ultra-Orthodox parties and that the Change Bloc was pursuing a government with United Torah Judaism under a lenient conscription law. Talks were still at an early stage. Segal said United Torah Judaism wanted a law without targets or quotas.
He said Porush and Stark had been instructed by their rebbes to back Netanyahu. The decision was reversed after Rabbi Landau spoke with the rebbes on Wednesday, and Porush skipped the consultations in protest.
Shas said it was staying with Netanyahu because he pledged legislation to protect Torah scholars. Segal said the bloc expected Shas to yield to pressure from Rabbi Landau.
Beyachad’s Merav Cohen ruled out supporting what she called a draft evasion law. Hanania Ben Shimon said the reported plan, if true, would betray those who serve and make the draft-dodging law worse.
Deri said critics exploited his movement’s wartime restraint to attack it and its leaders and tried to divide its spiritual leadership.
