Overview
- Caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu renewed a public push for a broad unity government on Saturday, framing the offer as necessary to confront what he described as an urgent Iranian nuclear threat.
- Gadi Eisenkot immediately dismissed the appeal as a political stunt and accused Netanyahu of stoking a racist campaign against Arab citizens, saying “these tricks don’t work on me.”
- Party negotiating teams from Eisenkot’s Yashar bloc and Netanyahu’s Likud were due to meet on Sunday as an early test of whether private talks match the leaders’ public statements.
- Eisenkot is pursuing a fallback plan for a minority ‘national emergency’ government that would rely on his 48 lawmakers voting in favor while Arab and ultra‑Orthodox MPs abstain, a route that would avoid including Arab parties in the cabinet.
- The wider context is that no bloc won 61 seats in the Oct. 27 election, Arab‑led lists hold a record 19 seats and the Knesset speaker vote on Tuesday will be an immediate barometer of whether Likud and its allies accept cooperation under Eisenkot’s terms.