Israeli Politicsupdated 4m ago3 min read
Benjamin Netanyahu Appeals for Unity Government With Gadi Eisenkot After Thursday Talks
“While it is not clear whether this is nothing but political theater, one thing is certain: neither party can afford to leave this particular stage.”
“The statement offered no details on what was discussed or whether any progress was made toward bridging the differences”
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Netanyahu urges formation of national unity government with Eisenkot to safeguard Israel's security Negotiating teams from Likud and Eisenkot's bloc continue talks on a unity government
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Unity push, competing blocs
Israel’s caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu renewed his appeal for a unity government with opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot, saying in a video statement on Saturday that his meeting with Eisenkot on Thursday “only strengthened the conviction that it is essential to form a national unity government”. Eisenkot, the leader of the Yashar party and the man given the first shot to form Israel’s next government by President Isaac Herzog, called Netanyahu’s appeal a “bluff” while confirming that Yashar and Netanyahu’s Likud Party were talking about the proposal for a shared government. The October 27 election left Eisenkot’s four-party bloc with 48 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, while Netanyahu’s right-wing and religious bloc secured 53 and the Joint List and Ra’am won a record 19 seats between them.
Eisenkot’s bloc then showed what it could do with Palestinian-led factions by securing a 63-to-50 vote to approve the makeup of the Arrangements Committee, and the bloc moved to set up temporary committees overseeing finance, foreign affairs and defence. President Herzog gave Eisenkot until December 6 to form a government, with an extension of up to 14 days that would take the deadline to December 20, and Eisenkot said he could support a government led by him if members of Likud and the Religious Zionist Party backed his programme.
Talks proceed, blame contested
Negotiating teams on behalf of the Yashar party, led by Gadi Eisenkot, and the Likud led by Benjamin Netanyahu met on Sunday after Eisenkot appeared to reject recent calls by the prime minister to form a unity government. The Times of Israel said the Likud and Yashar negotiating teams met for the first time Sunday afternoon, and it framed the effort as a “battle over who takes the blame” because neither side wanted to be cast as torpedoing unity. The Times of Israel reported that Netanyahu’s video statement Saturday night called on Eisenkot to enter negotiations without preconditions, while Eisenkot immediately dismissed the appeal as “another spin” but stressed talks with the Likud were already scheduled.
The Times of Israel also reported that Eisenkot sent Yoav Horowitz to the Likud talks and named MK Chili Tropper and Yoav Horowitz as the two men he was sending to the meeting. The Times of Israel said the talks should be viewed on two levels, as coalition negotiations that could produce a broad government and as a struggle over who would be blamed if no such government emerges.
Knesset moves, deadlines tighten
Israel’s new parliamentary majority faced a limited window because Eisenkot still had to assemble a governing coalition, and the ynetglobal and ynetnews accounts said the deadlock over forming a new government left reforms promised to voters at risk of remaining unfinished. The ynetglobal and ynetnews accounts said one of the first measures to be delayed was legislation that would allow parliament to establish a state commission of inquiry into the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, while the parties seeking to replace Netanyahu prioritized repealing laws associated with Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul. The ynetglobal and ynetnews accounts said the Knesset was expected to vote Tuesday on appointing Yashar lawmaker Matan Kahana as parliament speaker, and they said the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee was due to convene on Monday under Avigdor Lieberman.
The ynetglobal and ynetnews accounts said the Knesset legal adviser did not approve the creation of so many temporary committees and instead examined whether three committees could handle the most urgent legislative matters. The ynetglobal and ynetnews accounts said the Sunday meeting between Likud and Eisenkot’s Yashar produced no meaningful progress and that a source familiar with the negotiations acknowledged shortly afterward that the meeting had achieved little.