Israel’s president picks Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot to form government

Israel’s president has chosen Gadi Eisenkot, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strongest rival, to try to form a new government, following a deadlocked election that left neither man with a clear path to power.

Isaac Herzog’s office said he had informed Eisenkot, the leader of the Yashar party, on Saturday night “of his intention to task him with forming a government”

It added that the formal appointment would take place in an official ceremony on Sunday at the president’s residence in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu is fighting to hold on to office after his religious-nationalist coalition lost its majority in an election on 27 October but still emerged as the largest bloc in parliament.

Should Eisenkot succeed in forming a coalition, he would take over as prime minister from Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving premier.

Eisenkot’s wide-ranging opposition bloc won 48 of the Israeli parliament’s 120 seats in October elections, while Netanyahu’s camp secured 53, leaving neither with a majority.

During party consultations with Herzog, 66-year-old Eisenkot received the endorsements of both Arab-majority lists, who could now play kingmakers after making unprecedented gains in the vote.

But it remains unclear if Eisenkot’s bloc would accept support from the Arab lists in forming a government.

Eisenkot, the military chief of staff from 2015 to 2019, has set out to unite Israelis after Netanyahu’s divisive tenure, under which the country moved sharply to the right.

He has vowed to crack down on extremist West Bank settlers who have attacked Palestinians with impunity, decrying recent incidents as “Jewish terror” abetted by Netanyahu’s government.

But the military man is no peacenik. He opposes the creation of a Palestinian state and vowed to end Hamas’s rule in Gaza and destroy the Islamist movement’s military wing.

Commanding the military during the 2006 war with Hezbollah, Eisenkot devised the so-called “Dahiya doctrine”. The idea, named after a Beirut suburb heavily damaged in that war, involves Israel vowing to use massive force against civilian infrastructure in areas controlled by Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah.