The leaders of Israel’s five main Jewish-led opposition parties agreed on Tuesday to back Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief of staff, for prime minister, and promised to replace Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as fast as they could.
They met in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. It was their first meeting together since the Oct. 27 election left neither camp with a majority in the 120-seat Knesset, Al Jazeera reported. Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 seats, 27 of them for his Likud party, the largest in Parliament. The opposition won 48. Two Arab-led parties hold the other 19: the Joint List with 11 and Ra’am with eight. Under the final count, neither side reaches the 61 seats needed to govern on its own.
Mr. Eisenkot, who leads the Yashar party, was joined by Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister, along with Avigdor Liberman of Yisrael Beytenu, Yair Golan of the Democrats and Yair Lapid, the outgoing opposition leader.
In a joint statement, the five said they “are coordinated and will act immediately” to replace the government “with a national emergency government.” Mr. Bennett said the bloc had no time to lose and had to “act with great urgency.”
The leaders agreed to start coalition talks right away and to recommend that President Isaac Herzog give Mr. Eisenkot the first chance to form a government, according to The Times of Israel, which said their path to a majority was still unclear. Mr. Herzog is scheduled to consult the parties on Wednesday and Thursday.
The numbers turn on the Arab-led parties. At the meeting, the leaders endorsed four principles Mr. Eisenkot has laid out, among them that every party in the government recognize Israel as a Jewish state and designate Hamas a terrorist group. Those conditions could shut out some of the Arab-led parties whose seats the opposition would need to reach 61.
Mr. Golan is the only opposition leader who openly supports an alliance with them. He has called their exclusion racist and promised action on crime in Palestinian communities. He and Arab party leaders have pointed to a “shared interest in using the parliamentary majority to bring down the Netanyahu-Ben-Gvir-Smotrich government.”
Mr. Liberman is firmly against bringing the Arab-led parties in. He also wants to avoid another election.
Yousef Jabareen, who leads the largest Arab-led party, urged the opposition to accept “political reality” and unite against Mr. Netanyahu. Palestinian citizens make up about 20 percent of Israel’s population. Since the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, they have been pushed further to the political margins, Al Jazeera reported, and some of their politicians have been briefly arrested. When Benny Gantz left the race last month, their parties were left holding the balance.
Mr. Netanyahu, 77, has his own reading of the result. On Monday he called for a “broad national government” under his leadership, and he has said voters chose him to lead. He has ruled out working with the Arab lists, which he says “support terrorism and deny the existence of the Jewish state.” None of the opposition leaders has shown any willingness to join him.
Mr. Netanyahu is on trial for corruption, and the International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for his arrest over alleged war crimes in Gaza, where more than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began in October 2023.
If lawmakers from the Arab-led parties back Mr. Eisenkot when Mr. Herzog holds his consultations this week, he could end up with the most recommendations.