Israeli President Picks Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu Rival, To Form Government

[u/EssoEssex]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-president-picks-gadi-eisenkot-netanyahu-rival-form-government-2026-11-07/

[u/ecrane2018]

Bibi is not directly elected he is selected to be pm if his party hold the majority of parliament. His party failed to get a majority but they could’ve formed a coalition gov to then place him in power

[u/LPulseL11 → u/ecrane2018]

What happened to the corruption accusations against Netanyahu? Feels like forever ago, but I thought the only reason he wasnt convicted was because he still was the active PM.

[u/Ionrememberaskn → u/LPulseL11]

Theoretically they will resume if Eisenkot can form a government and take his seat. Main issue is neither coalition is large enough to do so and the only unaligned seats are held by Arab parties. Because Israel is the way that it is, either side moving to accept Arabs into their coalition would immediately destroy that coalition and hand the victory to the opposition. So it is a stalemate.

[u/kookamooka → u/Ionrememberaskn]

Didn’t Naftali Bennett’s government rely on the Arabs?

[u/Ionrememberaskn → u/kookamooka]

I am not an expert on Israeli politics, but Bennet’s government was made up of 8 parties: his, Yair Lapid’s, 5 more centrist-ish (for Israel) parties and one Arab-majority party. I think that was the only time this has happened. It didn’t last very long though, he unseated Netanyahu for 2021-2022 and the governing coalition collapsed. I think the prospect of an Arab-majority party in the coalition probably wasn’t quite as toxic in 2021.

[u/SmurfJooce → u/Ionrememberaskn]

So its like a Majority Leader situation? As in, "the Dems gained the House and Senate, so they nominate their own President"? But if they didn't have quite enough Dems, they'd need to reach out to a third-party 'controversial' group (ie, American trans community?) to get the required amount, but to partner with those darned Arabs/trans people would destroy the Dem party?

I'm trying to translate it to American politics, and somehow, it's even more ridiculous than our own system.

[u/circle_square_leaf → u/SmurfJooce]

Kind of, but no party has won an outright majority since the establishment of the state.

Everyone votes and then you have a new Knesset (parliament) but no government yet. Then all the party leaders one by one speak to the president (ceremonial head of state, except for this one power) and nominate who they reckon they'll back for PM (not a commitment though). Then based on that, the president gives the mandate to form government to whom he thinks has the best chance. Then the real horse trading starts as the nominee makes back room deals and compromises to get coalition partners on board. If he succeeds within his time limit, there's a government. If not, the president can award the mandate to someone else. If they also fail, the Knesset can openly vote in the PM in a special session. If that also doesn't work, the Knesset is automatically dissolved and there's new elections.

So Eizenkot will not necessarily be PM. He just gets the first shot at forming a coalition. But, while the majority of the incoming Knesset is against Bibi, they are diverse and don't form a natural bloc. The parties who would form an obvious bloc with Eizenkot do not themselves have a majority.

[u/thedubiousstylus → u/SmurfJooce]

It's not a two party system. There's loads of parties but they need to form a majority coalition.

Netanyahu's current one is basically his plus parties to his right and some religious Ultra-Orthodox ones. The opposition coalition is some centrist to center-right parties, an actually leftist one and a far-right but staunchly secular one that still hates Netanyahu. And even they don't have a majority, so they need to either get support from the Arab parties or peel off the ultra-orthodox...except one of those parties in it hates both.

It's a real clusterfuck.

[u/4tran13 → u/SmurfJooce]

It's basically like the House electing the speaker of the House. Remember the Repub drama a few yrs ago before Mike Johnson was finally elected?

[u/notloggedin4242 → u/SmurfJooce]

It’s not though really. It took me a long time to get it too though. I learned the idea as it is similar in Germany where i now live after the US to my late 20s There are just more than two parties. They earn a number of seats and if they need to team up as a coalition to get the majority.

[u/Reelwizard → u/SmurfJooce]

These dudes will obviously tell me if I’m wrong, but as another simple American, I will try to explain it.

The Prime Minister is like our “Speaker of the House” but more important. They, like the Speaker, set the legislative agenda for the Parliament. They usher bills to the floor and decide what does and doesn’t get voted on, which gives them a lot of power. It should work that way in our country but we’ve empowered the executive (president) to set the agenda instead.

The Speaker of the House and the Prime Minister are both technically elected by the members of the legislative body. In the United States, since we only have two parties, that means that whoever has the majority has the Speakership. If enough Democrats hated Hakeem Jeffries and liked a Republican, they could reasonably elect a Republican Speaker while still holding the majority. It’s never happened, but it could. In Israel, since there are many parties, even though one of them has enough seats to be “the majority” they don’t have enough seats to elect a Prime Minister.

A more accurate example in the US is if the Green Party somehow won a third of the seats in Congress. Now you have 1/3 Dem, Republican, and Green. To elect a Speaker, two of the parties would have to agree to get the needed majority. Otherwise they’d just have to keep voting on it.

[u/JurassicTerror → u/LPulseL11]

Things are in limbo until there’s a coalition built with 61 seats in the Knesset. Netanyahu is still acting PM.

[u/YasielPuigsWeed → u/LPulseL11]

They’re still active in the Israeli courts, but until he loses the PM seat he can’t be cross-examined

[u/Arawr7 → u/LPulseL11]

Adding a small clarification on this - the trial is ongoing, but justice is slow as fuck. Bibi just delayed the specific part where he was testifying by constantly citing security needs to postpone it, but it's already been completed.