The president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, announced this Saturday, November 7, that Gadi Eisenkot, leader of Yashar!, will be in charge of forming a coalition government, after receiving the support of 67 deputies. Former Chief of the General Staff, he must join the Arab parties without losing his right-wing allies to become prime minister and succeed Benjamin Netanyahu.

First modification: 08/11/2026 - 02:22Last modification: 08/11/2026 - 03:28

Gadi Eisenkot is chosen to form the Government in Israel.

This was announced by President Isaac Herzog, who specified that this Sunday, November 8, he will meet with the opposition leader to entrust him with the difficult task of forming a coalition government.

Eisenkot now has 28 days (extendable for another 14) to form a new Executive. If he does not succeed in those 42 days, Herzog can choose another candidate.

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During the round of consultations with the different parties, Eisenkot added a total of 67 recommendations from parliamentarians compared to the 46 obtained by the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

"I will do everything to make us worthy," wrote party leader Yashar! in your X account.

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From military chief to opposition leader

Eisenkot was chief of the General Staff between 2015 and 2019. He entered politics in 2022 with National Unity, Benny Gantz's alliance, and last year founded his own party.

After the attacks by the Islamist group Hamas on October 7, 2023, he joined the war cabinet as an observer. In 2024 he abandoned it, after accusing Netanyahu of not having a strategy for Gaza.

In a letter sent to other cabinet members, he warned them that they were confusing incremental advances on the battlefield with decisions that could actually neutralize Hamas and make Israel safer.

However, their criticism did not focus on the level of destruction in Gaza or the high number of civilian deaths, factors that sparked global outrage. Like almost all of the current prime minister's rivals, he has broadly supported Israeli military operations in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

“He is everything that Netanyahu is not,” Gideon Rahat, senior researcher at the Israeli Institute for Democracy (Jerusalem) think tank, had said before the elections.

“He is not polarizing, he is not a populist like Netanyahu, and he will try to unify the country.”

“He presents himself as an ordinary man, a reflection of the ordinary Israeli,” wrote Joshua Leifer, a columnist for the Israeli newspaper ‘Haaretz’. He is “kind of anti-political,” he said.

A contrast with Netanyahu

Eisenkot, 66, the son of Moroccan Jewish immigrants, stands in stark contrast to Netanyahu, an American-trained member of the elite currently on trial for corruption.

Unlike the prime minister, Eisenkot comes from a working-class family, his English is not refined and he spent four decades in the Army.

Nor did he campaign by flaunting his closeness to US President Donald Trump. His 25-year-old son, Gal Meir Eisenkot, was killed in combat in Gaza, while Netanyahu's son, a podcaster, lived part-time in Florida.

The loss of a son and two nephews in the war has raised Eisenkot's profile among Israelis and given him credibility as someone who, having paid the ultimate price, will not sacrifice soldiers unnecessarily.

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Security and “Service for All”

His platform includes a commitment to strengthening Israel's national security, including through regional cooperation, although he has said he supports Jewish settlements that are “in line with Israel's interests” in the West Bank.

Likewise, it has adopted the motto “Service for All”, in reference to the imposition of compulsory military service on ultra-Orthodox communities.

The Dahiyeh Doctrine

Although he has stressed that diplomacy is the way to address Israel's security challenges, Eisenkot is also credited with formulating Israel's so-called "Dahiyeh Doctrine," named for the southern suburbs of Beirut where the Hezbollah group has a stronghold.

Eisenkot expanded on the doctrine in a 2008 interview with the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, after serving as a senior military commander during Israel's 2006 war with Lebanon.

“What happened in the Dahiyeh neighborhood of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which shots are fired in the direction of Israel,” Eisenkot said. "We will exert disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired at Israel, and we will cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, those are military bases," he added.

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The difficult path of forming a Government

Eisenkot could try to form a minority government with the natural allies of his Yashar! party, that is, Together, The Democrats and Israel Our Home. That government would be sustained with the support of Israel's two Arab parties, Ra'am and the Joint List, although they are not part of the coalition.

Eisenkot's coalition would add 48 seats, and with the 19 from the Arab parties it would achieve a majority in a Parliament of 120 members, enough to resist motions of censure.

But even if Eisenkot backs down on his campaign promise not to include Arab parties in the government and accepts their support, it would be difficult for many Israelis to accept. Its attitude toward the country's Arab minority has further hardened since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

Israel Our Home, the party of right-wing leader Avigdor Lieberman, has repeatedly ruled out since the elections forming a minority government with the Arab parties.

Netanyahu focused his campaign on delegitimizing Arab support. For now, only the Democrats, a center-left party, have publicly asked to be included.

In 2021, Ra'am joined the government of former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who today leads the Together party and is one of Eisenkot's partners. That government fell after 18 months, partly due to differences over the occupied West Bank.

This time, Arab parties recommended Eisenkot to form a government and stated that they are willing to work with the opposition bloc to prevent Netanyahu from returning to power.

"We can envision or we can foresee three possible scenarios. The first, the most likely, is that Eisenkot will have to negotiate with two Arab lists, but this is not a good thing for the former chief of the General Staff, nor for some of his allies... The second possible scenario is that he can also invite the ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties to form a government with him. But the problem is that Eisenkot, as a former military man and former chief of the General Staff, wants to impose military service on Jews. ultra-Orthodox, which would surely be rejected by these two parties that could uh provide three seats," analyst Susana Mangana tells France 24.

"And thirdly it would be, for example, coming to work together with Netanyahu and sharing the government," he concludes.

With AP, EFE, Reuters and local media

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