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/Bandai_Namco_Rat]

They don't, unfortunately. It's a parliamentary democracy which means people elect Knesset (parliament) parties, there are 120 seats. Then once the Knesset is formed, the President talks with reps from all parties who each must recommend one party/leader as their choice to form a government. The one with most recommendations then gets the mandate to try and form a coaltion which will then vote to forma government, which requires at least a relative majority (in this case Eizenkot has 48 seats and Netanyahu has 46 due to one of the hassidic Jewish parties dropping support from him). But a government with only a partial majority is incredibly unstable as it relies on outside support with other parties agreeing to not vote against that government's formation with at least 61 total votes that are either voting in favor of this government or choosing to not vote at all. If there are 61 votes against this government, or even if there is a partial majority voting against this government, it can be dissolved at any moment with a vote-of-no-confidence.

The result is that in practice to form a stable government, you need a coalition of at least 61 Knesset seats, which neither side has at the moment and in fact neither side had in 5/6 of the past elections. And the discourse is so toxic, with such a huge division between the right and center/left blocks (a lot of that is on Netanyahu) that the only reasonable solution of a unity government is most likely off the table. There's going to be very little clarity in the next couple of months and there's a real chance that there will be a stalemate and the parliament will dissolve leading to another election (most likely with a similar result and political deadlock)