The former army chief has 28 days to turn 67 endorsements into a governing majority, and a key partner refuses to lean on Arab-led parties to get there.
By EEW Magazine Online Editors
A billboard for the i24NEWS television channel shows Gadi Eisenkot, left, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu above traffic in Tel Aviv on Oct. 21, 2026, ahead of Israel’s national election. (REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo)
Nearly three years after he buried his son, Gadi Eisenkot has been handed the first chance to form Israel’s next government. Gal Eisenkot, a 25-year-old reservist, was killed in northern Gaza in December 2023, two months after his father joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet as an observer.
On Sunday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog formally gave the former army chief the mandate, passing over Netanyahu after the Oct. 27 election left neither man with a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
Eisenkot, 66, received recommendations from 67 lawmakers during two days of presidential consultations. Netanyahu drew 46. Those endorsements do not add up to a government. Eisenkot’s four-party alliance holds 48 seats, and his quickest path to a majority runs through Arab-led parties that one of his own partners refuses to rely on.
Eisenkot has 28 days to build a coalition, and Herzog can extend that by up to 14 days. If he fails, Herzog could give Netanyahu, who remains caretaker prime minister, a chance to try. Further failed attempts could send Israelis back to the polls.
Gadi Eisenkot, leader of Israel’s Yashar party, in Tel Aviv on June 24, 2026. (REUTERS/Nir Elias/File Photo)
“I will do anything possible to prove us worthy,” Eisenkot wrote on X after the announcement, according to AP. At Sunday’s ceremony at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, he called for a national emergency government and said Israel was nearing a point of no return. Herzog said he expected Eisenkot “to establish a government that will serve the entire people,” The Jerusalem Post reported.
Eisenkot led the Israel Defense Forces as chief of staff from 2015 to 2019. He left the war cabinet after eight months, criticizing Netanyahu’s leadership, Reuters reported. In his son’s eulogy, he recalled Gal telling him that he and his comrades believed they were fighting “a just war.”
Netanyahu’s right-wing and religious bloc won 53 seats, down from a peak of 68 in the outgoing parliament. Likud remains the largest single party, with 27 seats. Eisenkot’s Yashar, a new party whose name is Hebrew for “straight” or “upright,” won 21. Arab-led parties won a record 19 seats after turnout in Arab communities climbed to about 77%, up from 53.2% in 2022, according to an Israel Democracy Institute analysis.
Avigdor Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beitenu party holds seven of the alliance’s 48 seats, has ruled out a government that depends on Arab parties. Without his lawmakers, Eisenkot’s alliance and the Arab-led parties together reach 60, one short of a majority. A government can still take office with fewer than 61 votes if it wins a confidence vote, Al Jazeera reported.
Avigdor Lieberman, chairman of the Yisrael Beitenu party. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Lieberman has warned that such a minority government would be unstable and would ultimately strengthen Netanyahu, according to Ynet. He has said he wants either a 61-seat coalition that includes the ultra-Orthodox parties or a new election.
Winning over the ultra-Orthodox parties would mean resolving one of the election’s most contentious issues: military service. United Torah Judaism, with seven seats, and Shas, with six, would bring the alliance to exactly 61. Both have long been Netanyahu allies, and Eisenkot’s bloc campaigned on requiring ultra-Orthodox men to serve. UTJ declined to recommend either candidate. Shas backed Netanyahu. Lieberman, who fought ultra-Orthodox military exemptions for years, now says he is willing to compromise, The Times of Israel reported. Eisenkot is now courting both parties, according to Ynet.
Eisenkot has held firm on four principles for any partner, i24NEWS reported. The first two are recognition of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and acceptance of the values of its Declaration of Independence. The third is mandatory military, national or civilian service for all citizens. The fourth is recognition of Hamas as a terrorist organization, with a commitment to dismantle its military capabilities and rule. Before the vote, he said he would not partner with Arab-led parties because none accepted those principles, according to Reuters.
Party ballot slips fill trays inside a voting booth for Israel’s Oct. 27, 2026, Knesset election. Voters choose one slip and seal it in an envelope. (Artem.G/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0, cropped)
Both Arab-led parties, Ra’am and the Joint List, recommended him anyway. The parties draw much of their support from Arab citizens of Israel, Muslims and Christians among them. Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas told Herzog he believed Eisenkot could assemble a stable government. When Herzog pressed him, Abbas called for Hamas to be disarmed and removed from power but stopped short of calling it a terrorist organization, The National reported.
The Joint List has said it would support Eisenkot from outside the coalition to end Netanyahu’s hold on power, according to AP. Such an arrangement would give Eisenkot votes in the Knesset without bringing Joint List lawmakers into his cabinet. Arab lawmakers helped sustain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s government from outside the coalition in the 1990s, and Ra’am became the first Arab-led party to join a governing coalition in 2021.
In a video released shortly before Herzog’s announcement Saturday, Netanyahu called for a “national unity government” that would include all of his former coalition allies. He warned against rushing to install a government backed by what he called terrorist supporters, an apparent reference to the Arab-led parties, CBS News reported. “With a government like that, Israel simply won’t survive,” he said, according to The Times of Israel.
Yashar dismissed the video as hysterical and invited Likud to join if it cut ties with what the party called extremists. The offer excluded Netanyahu. Eisenkot has said anyone in a major position of power on Oct. 7, 2023, must leave public life.
Netanyahu and Likud have also made unsubstantiated claims that Arab-led parties stole the election, citing suspected Qatari funding. The Shin Bet is investigating possible foreign interference with help from the Mossad, and Qatar denies involvement. Election officials found no evidence of systematic voting irregularities and certified the results Nov. 4.
Eisenkot was expected to meet Lieberman on Monday, a day before the new Knesset is sworn in. Lieberman’s seven lawmakers could decide whether the alliance turns to Arab parties or to Netanyahu’s longtime religious allies. Netanyahu remains caretaker prime minister until a new government takes office.
