Herzog turns to Gadi Eisenkot as Israel’s fractured political establishment again fails to produce a majority
Select a version of the text written from a presumed ideological perspective. This is not the original text, but a hypothetical version — how someone with that viewpoint might have phrased it. Tapping the current version again will return to the original or select cleaned version.
President Isaac Herzog has handed former military chief Gadi Eisenkot the mandate to try to assemble a coalition after the November 2026 election left the Knesset split and unable to deliver a governing majority.
President Isaac Herzog invited former military chief Gadi Eisenkot to the President’s Residence on Saturday, assigning him the impossible-looking job of forming a new government within 28 days, with a possible 14-day extension. Eisenkot, who leads the Yashar party, was nominated even though he has refused to join forces with Arab parties, whose support would provide him with a parliamentary majority and expose the limits of Israel’s rigid bloc politics.
The November 7 election left Likud as the largest single party with 27 seats, while Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist bloc secured 53 seats, still well short of the 61 needed for a majority. Eisenkot’s coalition of four Jewish-led parties holds 48 seats, and two Arab parties together won 19 seats, an unprecedented share that underscores both the electorate’s diversity and the system’s inability to translate it into stable governance.
Analysts say Eisenkot’s options – a minority government with external Arab support, a coalition with ultra-Orthodox parties, or a unity arrangement with Benjamin Netanyahu – are all unlikely, each shaped by hardline political calculations rather than any genuine appetite for compromise. Should his attempt fail, another candidate may be given the mandate, and if no government is formed within roughly 100 days, a new election will be called, prolonging the political paralysis.
Eisenkot, 66, a son of Moroccan immigrants, would become the first prime minister from Israel’s Mizrahi community. He entered politics in 2022, briefly served in Netanyahu’s wartime cabinet after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, and has since criticized Netanyahu’s handling of the Gaza conflict. Eisenkot has also spoken out against settler violence and opposes coalition partners Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, whose influence remains a major obstacle to any broad, inclusive government.
"President Herzog has invited Gadi Eisenkot to the President’s Residence, where he will be tasked with forming the government tomorrow," a spokesperson for President Herzog said.