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Former army chief Gadi Eisenkot and his allies launched a legislative push against caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s legacy on Tuesday, as a new Knesset convened for a tense first session.
Although neither Eisenkot nor Netanyahu has the 61 votes needed in the 120-seat parliament to form a government, Eisenkot’s broad left-to-right bloc moved quickly to set the agenda. It did so with the backing of Arab-Israeli lawmakers, whose role has drawn fierce opposition from Netanyahu’s base and even from some right-wing members of Eisenkot’s own camp.
Eisenkot’s Yashar party said it had submitted a series of proposals, including one to set up an independent commission to investigate the security failures that allowed the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023. Netanyahu has long opposed such an inquiry.
The party also moved to repeal, broadly, the judicial overhaul pushed through by Netanyahu’s government. The overhaul sparked some of the largest protests in Israeli history before being overshadowed by three years of war.
The bloc said it has enough votes to install Matan Kahana, another former senior military figure, as speaker. Current speaker Amir Ohana, an ally of Netanyahu, said he had agreed to a request from 67 lawmakers to hold the vote next Tuesday, “despite my strong opposition to the intention of the emerging coalition.”
Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister with nearly two decades in power, used his remarks after the session to renew his call for a national-unity government. He said Israel must confront a threat from Iran’s clerical government, which has survived two major Israeli bombing campaigns he ordered with the support of U.S. President Donald Trump.
He appeared to acknowledge a shifting diplomatic reality after Democrats soundly defeated Trump in midterm elections last week, driven partly by anger over the war. “In the very near future, we’re going to be confronted by international pressure to accept a nuclear-armed Iran and the preservation of this terror regime that seeks to annihilate us,” Netanyahu said. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, and both Netanyahu and Trump have previously claimed its nuclear programme was devastated.
Netanyahu faces possible jail time if convicted on corruption charges after leaving office.
Eisenkot called the remarks a “shameful” exploitation of the occasion and said they showed Netanyahu was “unfit to remain in office for even one more minute.” He also cancelled a meeting with Netanyahu’s Likud party that had been set for Wednesday. Yashar said the prime minister “does not want unity” and accused him of putting “his own political survival” first.
President Isaac Herzog, who has tasked Eisenkot with forming a government, opened the session by urging lawmakers to “do everything to avoid a repeat election.” He called on them to “reach out a hand for compromise, even between rivals.” Shouting broke out soon afterward.
Eisenkot’s speaker pick is expected to pass easily with support from Arab-Israeli lawmakers, whose numbers have grown to historic highs amid anger at Netanyahu’s far-right government. Some of them, who are descendants of Palestinians who remained in the country after Israel’s creation in 1948, left the chamber during the national anthem to avoid standing for it.
Avigdor Liberman, a right-wing member of Eisenkot’s bloc who has refused to serve in a government reliant on Arab-majority parties, posted news of the walkout online. “You want to form a government with them?” he wrote.
Far-right caretaker National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a Netanyahu ally, loudly heckled Yousef Jabareen, leader of the Arab-majority Joint List. “Who is he pledging allegiance to, Hamas?” Ben Gvir shouted before order was restored.
Mansour Abbas, head of the Arab-Israeli party Raam, which is generally seen as more moderate, pledged to work to replace the Netanyahu government. “We aspire to be part of the solution,” he said.
Liberman has proposed an alliance with ultra-Orthodox Jews instead, despite years of bitter criticism of the community over its insistence on keeping an exemption from mandatory military service.
Eisenkot’s core bloc holds 48 seats. It would reach a majority if the 19 Arab-Israeli lawmakers voted for a government, which is more likely than their joining it. The two ultra-Orthodox parties hold 13 seats between them. United Torah Judaism, with seven, has stopped short of recommitting to Netanyahu, leaving him with 46 seats.
Netanyahu publicly appealed to the ultra-Orthodox to stay with him. “They’re going to promise you the moon and the stars but one minute after, God forbid, they form a government run by the left, all of those promises will vanish,” he said.
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