Israeli Politicsupdated 48m ago3 min read
Archive photo · 11 August 2011Netanyahu Loses Majority as Gadi Eisenkot Weighs Minority Government With Arab Parties
5 Other3 Israeli1 Latin American2 Other source typesPhoto: Yair Haklai, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Cropped for layout
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Netanyahu bloc fails to reach 61 seats, losing parliamentary majority. Gadi Eisenkot weighing minority government with outside backing from Ra'am and UTJ.
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Netanyahu, Eisenkot deadlock
Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc secured 53 of the 120 seats in Israel’s election, while Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc won 48 and the parties representing the Arab-Israeli minority added 19, leaving the blocs short of the 61 seats needed to govern and opening a negotiations period that could extend for weeks. President Isaac Herzog will have to hear the elected parties for a week and then designate the candidate he considers most likely to gather a majority, with the first candidate having 28 days to negotiate and the possibility of requesting a 14-day extension. The process would move to a second nominee with 28 days and no extension if the first attempt fails, and it would then shift to deputies with 21 days to propose someone backed by at least 61 parliamentarians, followed by another 14 days to finalize negotiations.
The sources also describe Netanyahu remaining as acting prime minister until a new government is formed and obtains the confidence of parliament, while the Supreme Court jurisprudence and the Attorney General’s guidelines limit certain decisions during the negotiations. Yousef Jabareen urged approaching the opposition parties to end Netanyahu’s government, arguing that the elections offer an opportunity to promote leadership based on collaboration between Jews and Arabs.
Delegitimise row and rebuttal
Netanyahu’s Likud alleged that voters had been "bribed" to vote for Arab parties, after the head of the Central Elections Committee asked the Shin Bet security service to investigate "serious suspicions" of foreign interference. Qatar’s foreign ministry denied the "ridiculous and dangerous" allegations and accused Israeli politicians of conducting a disinformation campaign against Doha, while the Shin Bet later clarified that its investigation did not implicate an entire community who had voted legally. Gadi Eisenkot said, "it is too early to determine what happened, or if anything happened at all," and he accused Netanyahu of running "an orchestrated and organized campaign to delegitimize the election results."
Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh dismissed the allegation, saying: "The losing side is constructing a racist blood libel and calling on the security agencies to use force in order to overturn the election results." The BBC also described the Joint List and the Ra’am as winning a record 19 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, positioning them as potential kingmakers in the three plausible options for forming a government.
Minority-government math
Ahmad Tibi urged Gadi Eisenkot to show political courage and work with Arab parties to end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule, and Tibi said, "I hope Eisenkot will be courageous enough to go forward and form a minority government, which will end this government of Netanyahu immediately." Tibi described a minority government as one where the ruling coalition holds fewer than 61 of the Knesset's 120 seats, and he said it survives by securing a "safety net" agreement that relies on outside parties to vote against opposition no-confidence motions without officially joining the cabinet. Tibi argued, "We prefer a new government by Eisenkot, as a minority government, and we are ready to help," while he rejected a national unity government because, as he put it, "We don't like a unity government, because one side will continue his brutal policy and the second will help him market this policy."
The sources also describe a plan examined by ynet in which Eisenkot’s bloc of 48 lawmakers would gain Yoav Segalovitz’s vote to reach 49 supporters against 46, while the remaining 25 lawmakers would abstain, including United Torah Judaism’s seven representatives, the other seven Ra'am lawmakers and the Joint List's 11. Avigdor Liberman declared that he would not agree to establish a government dependent on Arab or ultra-Orthodox parties, "either directly or indirectly," framing the outside-support approach as a major obstacle to any minority-government path.