Netanyahu Renews Call for Unity Government Without Preconditions, Eisenkot Dismisses Offer as Spin

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday publicly called on Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot to enter a unity government, repeating his argument that a coalition dependent on Arab parties would be incapable of confronting the Iranian threat.

"Let us go into the room, without preconditions," Netanyahu said in a video statement. "Put aside all disputes and all boycotts, and reach agreements for Israel's security and future." Unlike in previous appeals, he did not insist that he must head such a government.

Netanyahu's bloc lost its parliamentary majority in last month's election, and President Isaac Herzog last week gave Eisenkot the mandate to form a government. Eisenkot brushed off the prime minister's offer as "another spin," noting that negotiating teams from Likud and Yashar had already scheduled a meeting for Sunday, before Netanyahu issued his statement.

The exchange came as Channel 13 reported that Yashar plans to offer Likud a place in a unity government led solely by Eisenkot, with no rotation agreement, meaning Netanyahu would not serve as prime minister. "We will agree to compromises, but not on the matter of prime minister," a senior source in Eisenkot's orbit was quoted as saying. According to the report, Yashar would seek to find Netanyahu "a framework that enables him to deal with political matters," along with arrangements on his lodgings, security and other personal issues. Religious Zionism would also be offered a spot in the coalition.

Eisenkot had hoped to build a coalition around the four Jewish-led parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc, but they won only 48 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, while the Netanyahu-led bloc took 53 and the two Arab parties won 19. That leaves the bloc reliant on Arab-led parties or additional partners to take office. Netanyahu has repeatedly called for a government of all Jewish-majority parties, while continuing to attack his rivals, including in an acrimonious speech at the opening of the Knesset last week in which he insisted lawmakers from the Arab-led parties Ra'am and the Joint List seek Israel's destruction.

In his Saturday night statement, Netanyahu said the security briefing he gave Eisenkot on Thursday "only strengthened my understanding of how essential it is at this time to form a national unity government," one including all parties that support Israel as the state of the Jewish people. He also said agreements should be reached on military conscription, which he said could be solved together with representatives of the Haredi public. The drafting of ultra-Orthodox men is a key coalition issue: the Haredi community opposes it, while Eisenkot has made a universal draft one of his four guiding principles.

Netanyahu further claimed Iran is working to restore its nuclear weapons program and will use the bomb against Israel, less than a year after he launched a war alongside the United States in February that he said at the time had left Tehran "fighting for its own survival." Confronting the threat cannot be done with "a narrow government, or a government that relies on supporters of terrorism," he said, referring to Arab-led parties.

"He claims he wants unity, but disgraces a state occasion in the Knesset and divides and incites as if there were no tomorrow," Eisenkot responded in a statement. "Nice try, but these tricks don't work on me. And they don't work on the citizens of Israel, either." He accused Netanyahu of obstructing the formation of a new government because he knows an absolute majority of Israelis and lawmakers oppose him, and said Likud could join an emergency government he leads only with "recognition of the principles I have laid out and a break with the extremists," an apparent reference to Itamar Ben Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party. Eisenkot has long said he is open to a government including Likud without Netanyahu, whom he has said should not remain in power.

Eisenkot said Likud's next test will be Tuesday's vote on appointing Yashar lawmaker Matan Kahana as Knesset speaker, urging Likud and Religious Zionism to back the appointment if they truly want partnership. The opposition bloc is keen to replace the speaker to take control of the parliamentary agenda, and from Monday Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman is set to become chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Yashar sources told Channel 12 that nothing in Thursday's briefing changed their conviction that Netanyahu must be ousted, and noted that Netanyahu did not tell Eisenkot he had dispatched Mossad chief Roman Gofman to meet senior American officials about thwarting Iran's nuclear program.

Meanwhile, freshman Likud lawmaker Elishai Madan set up a protest tent near the Knesset on Saturday night calling for a unity government led by Netanyahu with Yashar inside it. "I intend to sit in the tent, night and day, in the cold and rain," he said in a video. Madan lost both his legs in a blast from a booby-trapped tunnel shaft while serving in Gaza fighting in November 2023.