Eisenkot Opens Door to Including Netanyahu and Smotrich in His Government

Israeli opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot, officially mandated by President Isaac Herzog to form the next government, announced his openness to including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his governing coalition, a statement he made during his formal assignment ceremony at Herzog's office in Jerusalem.

Eisenkot also expressed welcome for the participation of far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from the Religious Zionism party. Eisenkot indicated that if members of Likud and the Religious Zionism party believe this is a time for unity, as they told the president, then he cannot imagine any reason preventing them from supporting a government under his leadership and the principles he has put forward.

In the October 27 elections, Eisenkot's coalition of four parties won 48 seats, while the right-wing religious bloc led by Netanyahu secured 53 seats, with neither reaching the 61-seat threshold needed to form a parliamentary majority. Arab parties representing Palestinian citizens in Israel achieved a record 19 seats.

However, Eisenkot ruled out forming a government with Arab parties' participation, which would have given him a bloc of 67 seats. These Arab parties backed Eisenkot's mandate to form the government despite his having spent eight months as an observer on the War Cabinet chaired by Netanyahu during the war on Gaza that began in October 2023.

Meanwhile, Herzog warned that Israel faces a "new political reality" in the United States. He pointed to the necessity of a stable government to deal with the new American political developments.

Al Jazeera correspondent Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, described Netanyahu's position as still possessing "time to derail Eisenkot's efforts and foil attempts to secure a confidence vote," noting that he remains caretaker prime minister, and that Eisenkot's failure could return the matter to him and then to early elections that would keep him as caretaker prime minister in turn.