Recommendations leave coalition questions unresolved
Seven lawmakers abstained from recommending a candidate during Herzog's consultations, which continued for a second day Thursday. The talks followed the October 27 election, in which neither Netanyahu's camp nor Eisenkot's secured a parliamentary majority.
Presidents traditionally award the mandate to the candidate with the most recommendations, but Herzog emphasized that he must assess who can actually put together a government.
"The results of the consultations may appear clear, but the authority vested in me by law is to determine who has the ability to form a government, and that is not entirely clear, given the mutual vetoes between the blocs and within the blocs themselves," Herzog said. He planned to speak personally with some party leaders before deciding.
Eisenkot, a former military chief, campaigned on restoring national unity. His Yashar party portrayed the result as a rejection of Netanyahu and urged the immediate formation of a national emergency government serving all Israelis. Netanyahu, a divisive figure on the right, has led the country through three years of war.
Arab parties' support meets resistance within Eisenkot's camp
The Joint List and Ra'am both recommended Eisenkot on Thursday. Their combined 19 seats could determine whether he can govern, but cooperation with them remains a point of contention among his allies.
Avigdor Liberman's right-wing Yisrael Beytenu has repeatedly ruled out joining a government dependent on Arab parties. Liberman, once a Netanyahu ally and now a critic, has pointed to those parties' refusal to explicitly label Hamas a "terror group". They have nevertheless repeatedly condemned Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
The Arab-led lists increased their representation from 10 seats in the outgoing Knesset to a record 19, according to The Times of Israel. The increase was driven by Arab-Israeli turnout estimated at around 80 percent, compared with 53 percent in the previous election, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The gains also reflected anger at Netanyahu's hard-right government and longstanding grievances over discriminatory treatment of Arab Israelis and racism from some ministers.
The Joint List, comprising the mostly Arab parties Hadash, Ta'al and Balad, won 11 seats. Mansour Abbas' Ra'am, or United Arab List, took eight. The Sydney Morning Herald described Ra'am as the more pragmatic of the two. It previously participated in the short-lived Bennett-Lapid government in 2021-22, becoming the first Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition.
Netanyahu has repeatedly attacked the prospect of the opposition working with Arab lawmakers. In a video Wednesday, he questioned Arab citizens' loyalty and alleged "serious suspicions" of foreign money entering the election.
Separately, the Central Elections Committee rejected claims of widespread voter fraud and said an investigation would not alter the final results, The Times of Israel reported. Reports had raised the possibility of a Qatari effort to influence the vote. Qatar called the allegations "ridiculous and dangerous", according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
Military exemptions divide the parties
Netanyahu also failed to secure a recommendation from United Torah Judaism, despite receiving its backing after each of the previous five elections. The seven-seat party abstained rather than endorse Eisenkot, telling Herzog it would not recommend any lawmaker for the mandate, according to the president's office.
United Torah Judaism and Shas have sought to preserve military-service exemptions for religious students. Netanyahu has kept the exemption in place without writing it into law. The arrangement has provoked strong resentment among many other Israelis as reservists undertake repeated tours during the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.
"In whatever government is next formed, our immediate item is sorting out the status of Torah students," United Torah Judaism lawmaker Isaac Pindrus said.
Eisenkot takes the opposite position, insisting that military-service exemptions must end as he courts secular voters across the political spectrum. Some opposition allies have described the ultra-Orthodox community as a drain on state resources. The community accounts for about 14 percent of Israel's population and has much higher birthrates than secular Israelis.
Observers interpret United Torah Judaism's abstention chiefly as a way to punish Netanyahu and demonstrate that he cannot assume its support. They expect the party would still join a government if he managed to form one.
The parliamentary balance and next steps
Netanyahu's bloc retains 53 seats when United Torah Judaism is included, while Eisenkot's bloc has 48. The pro-Netanyahu parties held 68 seats in the outgoing parliament, according to The Times of Israel.
The Central Elections Committee's final results, published in late October, gave Likud 27 seats and Yashar 21. B'Yachad won 12; the Joint List, 11; The Democrats and Ra'am, eight each; Yisrael Beytenu, United Torah Judaism and Otzma Yehudit, seven each; and Shas and Religious Zionism, six each.
Turnout reached 77.9 percent of eligible voters, the highest in decades, with 5,716,665 votes cast, according to the committee.
Whoever receives Herzog's mandate will have 28 days to form a government and may receive a 14-day extension. If that attempt fails, Herzog will assign the task to another lawmaker.
The incoming 26th Knesset is scheduled to be sworn in on November 10, 2026, even if coalition negotiations are still underway. Analysts expect those negotiations could last more than two months, The Times of Israel reported.
