If neither Eisenkot's four-party opposition bloc nor Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition get the 61 mandates required for a majority in the Knesset, it is only possible to form a government with the help of an Arab party. Neither Eisenkot nor Netanyahu has said they would agree to work with the Islamist Raam party, whose leader Mansur Abbas has made it clear he is open to any proposal. But if everything hinges on an alliance with Raam, both Eisenkot and Netanyahu will be biting into the sour apple.
The crux is that Netanyahu and Eisenkot both lead blocs where one or more parties have sworn never to participate in a government that rests on Arab mandates. In 2021, when Netanyahu settled with Raam, the attempt was torpedoed by the settler extremists, and Netanyahu ended up in opposition for just over a year. Former Defense and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who belongs to Eisenkot's opposition bloc, has made it clear that his Israel Our Home party is not only opposed to a coalition with the Islamists – Lieberman is not even ready to govern with their passive support. Someone has to eat their hat and accept Arab support in the Knesset. Either the settler extremists do it and save Netanyahu, or Lieberman backs down and lifts his veto against the Islamists.
But before that becomes an issue, Eisenkot has to make sure that all three of his cronies recommend him as government-former. The ex-general Yair Golan from the left-liberal Democrats is unlikely to work, but both Lieberman and Naftali Bennett, Prime Minister 2021-22, are tipping to lead a new government themselves. In Sweden, it goes without saying that the leader of the largest party in the winning bloc gets the assignment. Not here. In 2021, when Bennett became prime minister, his party was the third largest in the anti-Netanyahu bloc. But Bennett made it clear that he would only help send Netanyahu into opposition if he himself was allowed to lead the government.
Both Bennett, an IT millionaire whose parents immigrated from California, and Lieberman, who arrived from the Soviet Republic of Moldova when he was 20, began their careers as admirers and close associates of Netanyahu. Both are right-wing nationalists, but an equally important driving force for them is a bottomless loathing and distrust of Netanyahu.
Whatever happens, Netanyahu will not await his fate in silence. He remains head of government until a new minister is sworn in. ÖB Eyal Zamir and Donald Trump have blocked Netanyahu's plans for an attack on Iran during the election campaign. But if Trump is in that mood after his own election next week, the risk of war flaring up is imminent. What would Netanyahu gain from it? It's not hard to guess. As Iranian missiles rained down on Tel Aviv, Netanyahu would make an emotional appeal to Eisenkot: "The gravity of the moment calls for national unity and a unity government!"
If Eisenkot manages to navigate safely past all the obstacles and assemble a viable government, an urgent danger must be cleared out of the way: the trade sanctions announced by twelve Western countries. There is only one way to do it: to put an end to settler terror against Palestinians in the West Bank. The brutal assaults have awakened governments and peoples who have ignored the occupation for decades.
Equally important is rolling back the "judicial reforms" that Netanyahu has been pushing since January 2023. A new leadership must end the government's boycott of the Supreme Court and the harassment of the prosecution. Attempts to take control of the media must be stopped. The authorities and government agencies that have been "colonized", lost their experts and placed in the hands of Netanyahu puppets, must be cleaned up. This is particularly true of the police and the main security services, whose role is to safeguard the state but which have now become pliable political bodies.
