Israel’s president taps opposition candidate Eisenkot to form a government, in setback for Netanyahu

Is­raeli Pres­i­dent Isaac Her­zog said Sat­ur­day night that he was giv­ing op­po­si­tion can­di­date Ga­di Eisenkot the first op­por­tu­ni­ty to form a gov­ern­ing coali­tion fol­low­ing elec­tions on Oct. 27.

Eisenkot, a for­mer mil­i­tary chief, ran as the main chal­lenger to Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu, lead­ing a bloc of par­ties seek­ing to oust Is­rael’s longest-serv­ing pre­mier.

Nei­ther Eisenkot nor Ne­tanyahu won a clear ma­jor­i­ty in the vote. But in marathon dis­cus­sions with the pres­i­dent this week, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from most of Is­rael’s main par­ties rec­om­mend­ed Eisenkot be tasked with as­sem­bling a new gov­ern­ment.

The an­nounce­ment, which had been ex­pect­ed on Sun­day, came short­ly af­ter Ne­tanyahu called for a “na­tion­al uni­ty gov­ern­ment” in a video state­ment and warned against “hasti­ly swear­ing in a gov­ern­ment with ter­ror­ist sup­port­ers” – an ap­par­ent ref­er­ence to the Arab-led par­ties.

Ne­tanyahu and his al­lies have re­peat­ed­ly por­trayed the Arab-led par­ties as a threat to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, while Eisenkot has in­di­cat­ed a will­ing­ness to part­ner with them un­der cer­tain con­di­tions, in­clud­ing call­ing Hamas a ter­ror­ist group that needs to be de­stroyed.

Eisenkot’s par­ty, Yashar, slammed the prime min­is­ter’s video with a state­ment post­ed on X and urged mem­bers of his par­ty, Likud, to dis­avow their al­liance with “rad­i­cal par­ties,” in an ap­par­ent ref­er­ence to the more ex­treme par­ties in his re­li­gious-na­tion­al­ist base.

The state­ment ar­gued that Eisenkot would on­ly in­clude par­ties and par­lia­ment mem­bers who sup­port its prin­ci­ples, in­clud­ing rec­og­niz­ing Hamas as a ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tion. —JERUSALEM (AP)

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Sto­ry by GIO­VAN­NA DELL’OR­TO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Ju­lia Frankel con­tributed from Jerusalem.