{"id":4150,"date":"2026-11-10T19:03:47","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T14:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=4150"},"modified":"2026-11-10T19:03:47","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T14:03:47","slug":"new-israeli-parliament-to-take-aim-at-netanyahu-as-eisenkot-seeks-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=4150","title":{"rendered":"New Israeli parliament to take aim at Netanyahu as Eisenkot seeks government"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Israel\u2019s new parliament is prepared to be sworn in Tuesday with a mission to take aim immediately at caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as rival Gadi Eisenkot vowed quickly to cobble together a new government.<\/strong><\/p>\n

President Isaac Herzog will deliver a speech at 4:00 pm (1400 GMT) for the swearing-in of the 120-seat parliament, in which neither Netanyahu\u2019s right-wing coalition nor Eisenkot\u2019s broad left-to-right anti-Netanyahu bloc will hold a majority.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am committed in this complex situation to form a national-emergency government as quickly as possible,\u201d Eisenkot, a 66-year-old former military chief who only recently entered politics, said as he prepared to be sworn in.<\/p>\n

Eisenkot\u2019s allies hope to use their newfound legislative power to move rapidly on key priorities, including a commission to investigate security failures under Netanyahu that allowed the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, the deadliest day in Israel\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Herzog on Sunday gave Eisenkot the initial mandate to form a government, starting the clock for him to cobble together a coalition within 28 days, with a possible 14-day extension.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the opening of the parliament, known as the Knesset, Eisenkot\u2019s party announced agreements on key people to replace allies of Netanyahu, Israel\u2019s longest-serving prime minister, who has been in and out of office for nearly 20 years.<\/p>\n

Eisenkot\u2019s bloc announced it would put forward as parliament speaker Matan Kahana, a former senior military figure who clashed with ultra-Orthodox Jews in a past stint in government.<\/p>\n

Avigdor Liberman, a right-wing member of Eisenkot\u2019s bloc who has played a key role in deciding who can enter the government, will be nominated as chair of the foreign affairs and defence committee.<\/p>\n

Arab-Israeli lawmakers said they would support Kahana, all but guaranteeing he will take the most votes and, with it, the helm of the parliament.<\/p>\n

Parties representing the Arab minority \u2014 descendants of Palestinians who stayed after Israel\u2019s creation in 1948 \u2014 won a record number of seats in the October 27 election on the back of anger over Netanyahu\u2019s hard-right government.<\/p>\n

But Eisenkot needs 61 votes \u2014 a majority \u2014 to become prime minister. Liberman has made clear that he will refuse to join a government that relies on Arab-Israelis, even if they stay out of the coalition and prop up a government without a majority.<\/p>\n

\u201cA minority government would only lead to the return of Netanyahu with 70 members of the Knesset,\u201d Liberman told reporters.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Arab-Israeli lawmakers under fire<\/h3>\n

Netanyahu has accused Arab-Israeli parties of supporting Hamas and accepting foreign funding, allegations the lawmakers deny and call smear tactics.<\/p>\n

Liberman, a former aide to Netanyahu turned critic who shares hawkish views, said he would use his new position to investigate allegations of foreign funding to the parties.<\/p>\n

Entering parliament, Mansour Abbas, leader of the Israeli-Arab party Raam, rejected Netanyahu\u2019s accusations of fraud by Israeli-Arab parties and pointed out that Netanyahu faces corruption charges which could land him in jail if he loses power.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will keep up the process of replacing the government,\u201d Abbas told reporters. \u201cWe aspire to be part of the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abbas confirmed he supports a two-state solution with the Palestinians, a stance shared by neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot, a former military chief who has sought to appeal to the centre.<\/p>\n

Shunning Israeli Arabs, Liberman has instead proposed an alliance with ultra-Orthodox Jews, despite his years of bitter denunciations of the community for its singular priority on maintaining an exemption from mandatory military service.<\/p>\n

Eisenkot\u2019s core bloc has 48 seats, but would achieve a majority if the 19 Arab-Israeli lawmakers either enter the government or, more likely, vote for it without joining.<\/p>\n

The two ultra-Orthodox parties hold 13 seats. United Torah Judaism, which has seven seats, has stopped short of recommitting to Netanyahu, leaving Israel\u2019s longest-serving prime minister with 46 seats.<\/p>\n

The two parties were long allied with Netanyahu, who backed the exemption from military service without enshrining it fully into law.<\/p>\n

An alliance with either group would likely be fragile, with a small number of lawmakers able to bring Eisenkot down over their particular concerns.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israel\u2019s new parliament is prepared to be sworn in Tuesday with a mission to take aim immediately at caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as rival Gadi Eisenkot vowed quickly to cobble together a new government. President Isaac Herzog will deliver a speech at 4:00 pm (1400 GMT) for the swearing-in of the 120-seat parliament, in which neither Netanyahu\u2019s right-wing coalition nor Eisenkot\u2019s broad left-to-right anti-Netanyahu bloc will hold a majority. \u201cI am committed in this complex situation to form a national-emergency government as quickly as possible,\u201d Eisenkot, a 66-year-old former…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}