It is unlikely that either Benjamin Netanyahu or Gadi Eisenkot would want to touch Arab parties with a barge pole knowing full well the domestic repercussions
| Photo Credit:
Jamal Awad
These are tense days not just for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but for the state of Israel for at least three reasons. First, the parliamentary elections of October 27 have produced no clear winners but only complications.
The Arab parties have come away with a stunning political show of getting 19 seats in the 120-member Knesset and positioning themselves as kingmakers in any coalition government that must have a 61 seat majority in the unicameral legislature.
Second, some 6,000 miles away there’s the mid-term elections in the US. A lot of critics of the Jewish state could make it to the House of Representatives and Senate. A Republican loss of even one Chamber on Capitol Hill could mean political trouble for Tel Aviv. A loss of both House and Senate by Republicans could complicate matters further.
Some of the anti-Israel sentiments come from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s conduct in the Gaza in the aftermath of the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, 2023. And there are those who believe that it was the Israeli leader who egged President Donald Trump to start the war against Iran by way of a bombing campaign on February 28, 2026. A conflict that was supposed to last just a few days is now in its ninth month.
Role of Israel in war
Third, the political stalemate in Israel comes at a time when the war in the Middle East is inconclusive. In the absence of a viable and functional government what could be the role of Israel in the event of President Trump ordering strikes on Iran post mid-term elections, which he has said he would on more than one occasion?
To blame Arab parties for the lack of a clear verdict is like making the point that Israeli Palestinians should have continued to sit on the sidelines as passive spectators. At this time it does not look as if the Arab parties are too anxious or desperate to throw in their lot with either Prime Minister Netanyahu or Gadi Eisenkot.
Omar Baddar, a Palestinian American analyst and a member of the national policy council of the Arab American Institute, has been quoted in Al Jazeera as saying: “Both of them [Netanyahu and Eisenkot] are committed to denying Palestinians freedom or human rights. They are determined not to give them a state of their own and determined not to grant them equality. Their vision for Palestinians is that they will remain under brutal military occupation indefinitely.”
The Right dominate
In a political spectrum that has been dominated by the right, far right, extreme right and the Ultra Orthodox right, it is unlikely that either Netanyahu or Eisenkot would want to touch Arab parties with a barge pole knowing full well the domestic repercussions. And Arab parties along with smaller parties do not have the numbers to lay a stake on forming the new government.
That leaves the Likud with 27 seats and the Netanyahu-bloc of 53 seats, or the Yashar of the former Chief of Defence Staff Eisenkot that won 21 seats and the anti-Netanyahu coalition with 48 seats looking for a viable arrangement.
On the surface it would seem that the views of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Eisenkot are not too far apart, especially on issues of security as it pertains to naming the Hamas as a terrorist outfit and frowning on any statehood for Palestinians. But for Netanyahu, who relies on the support of the Ultra Orthodox Jews, it would be difficult to accept the centrist Yashar’s insistence on ending military service exemptions.
President Issac Herzog would undoubtedly exhaust all his options and timelines including statutory extensions to put in place a new government. In the event no one is able to come up with a governing coalition, the Jewish state will have fresh elections in 90 days with Netanyahu and his Cabinet continuing in a caretaker status.
The writer is a senior journalist who has reported from Washington DC on North America and United Nations
Published on November 4, 2026
