Israel’s president picks Gadi Eisenkot to try to form a new government
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, has chosen Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party and Benjamin Netanyahu’s strongest rival, to try to form a new government after last month’s election left the 120-seat Knesset deadlocked. Herzog’s office said he told Eisenkot on Saturday night of his intention to give him that task; the formal appointment is due on Sunday at the president’s residence in Jerusalem.
The 27 October vote cost Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist coalition its majority, though his camp remains the largest bloc with 53 seats. Eisenkot’s wide-ranging opposition won 48, so neither side has a majority on its own. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is fighting to stay in office. If Eisenkot succeeds, he would replace him.
During consultations with Herzog, the 66-year-old former military chief of staff (2015–2019) won endorsements from both Arab-majority lists, which made unprecedented gains and could now act as kingmakers. It is still unclear whether Eisenkot’s bloc would accept their support. He has pledged to unite Israelis after Netanyahu’s divisive tenure, during which the country moved sharply to the right, and to crack down on extremist West Bank settlers who have attacked Palestinians with impunity, calling recent incidents “Jewish terror” abetted by Netanyahu’s government. He is not a peacenik: he opposes a Palestinian state and has vowed to end Hamas’s rule in Gaza and destroy its military wing. As a commander in the 2006 war with Hezbollah he devised the “Dahiya doctrine,” named after a heavily damaged Beirut suburb, under which Israel pledges massive force against civilian infrastructure in Hezbollah-controlled areas.
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