Eisenkot Gets the Mandate; Arab Voters Get the Door

Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israeli military chief, wants to run the country. On Sunday he said he'd form a "national emergency government" and that Israel is "approaching a point of no return." One of his three stated entry conditions: a duty of national service for all, "to strengthen the military and expand its ranks." So the cure for the emergency, in the incoming prime minister's telling, is more draftees.

President Isaac Herzog handed Eisenkot the task on Sunday at the president's residence, a day after announcing it. The October 27 election, 13 days ago, left both Eisenkot and Benjamin Netanyahu short of the 61 seats needed to govern. Eisenkot gets 28 days, plus a possible 14-day extension. If he fails, Netanyahu likely gets his turn. If both fail, Israelis go back to the polls.

The State's Monopoly

The arithmetic is the story. Netanyahu's Likud took 27 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, but his religious-nationalist bloc reached only 53. Eisenkot's Yashar party won 21, and his four-party coalition won 48. Two parties representing Israel's Arab minority won an unprecedented 19 seats. Arab citizens make up 21% of Israel's population.

Those 19 seats are exactly what either man would need, and neither wants to be seen needing them. Netanyahu called for a unity government of "all Zionist parties to preserve a Jewish state," calling it "the will of the people and the need of the hour," and ruled out a coalition with Arabs. Avigdor Lieberman of Israel Our Home has ruled out both a unity government with Netanyahu and a minority government backed by Arab parties. Eisenkot's own first principle is recognition of Israel "as a Jewish and democratic state." Nineteen seats won at the ballot box, and the only open question is how politely they'll be kept out of the room.

Herzog, for his part, cited a threat of attack from Iran, the need to progress toward peace in Gaza, and negotiations with Lebanon and other neighbours. The emergency list is long. The people who'd do the fighting, and the people on the receiving end of the fighting, weren't consulted.

Who Benefits

Eisenkot's third condition is recognition of Hamas as a terrorist organization and a commitment to destroying its military and governing capacity. Hamas, in Gaza, is a ruling authority with its own monopoly on force, and the commitment on offer from Jerusalem is to destroy that capacity by military means. Two apparatuses, each pledged to the other's elimination, each claiming to protect the people living between them. The base reporting says nothing about what Gaza's civilians get from either pledge.

Meanwhile the maneuvering is pure insider craft. Haaretz reported that Eisenkot is not expected to tell Herzog this week that he's succeeded, and that he's weighing replacing Likud's Knesset speaker. The reason: to deny Netanyahu and the current speaker time to "pressure lawmakers and derail the coalition" during the seven days between declaring a government formed and its swearing-in. A week of arm-twisting is baked into the process. Lieberman, who once refused to sit with the ultra-Orthodox, now allows that "in order to prevent further elections and bring an end to the Netanyahu era, there is no choice but to make difficult decisions." Principles, apparently, come with a flexibility clause.

Who Gets Crushed

A separate Haaretz piece in the same sourcing carries a headline about votes being called terror and a journalist jailed, framed as Israel's warning to Arabs. The base article doesn't give details, so there's nothing more to report here than the headline itself. But it sits in the same news cycle as the coalition horse-trading, and it says something about what "democratic" means when 19 Arab-party seats are treated as a problem to be managed.

Eisenkot says he needs a leadership "that people can look in the eye and trust." The mandate clock is running: 28 days, maybe 42. Every option on his table, a minority government leaning on Arab votes he won't openly court, a pact with ultra-Orthodox parties his allies once shunned, or a unity deal with Netanyahu, is a negotiation among people who already hold power over people who don't. Whoever wins the swearing-in gets the same army, the same budget, the same files.