Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Saturday night that he was giving opposition candidate Gadi Eisenkot the first opportunity to form a governing coalition following elections on Oct. 27.
Eisenkot, a former military chief who ran as the main challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is now a step closer to ousting Israel’s longest-serving premier.
“This is the time to establish a national emergency government. I will do anything possible to prove us worthy,” Eisenkot posted on his X account just after the presidential announcement.
He has up to six weeks to form a coalition, a challenging task in a deeply divided country reeling from the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks and the three years of wars that have followed in Gaza and beyond.
So when he’s just as bad as bibi what will the excuse be then? 🤔
We can look at his platform ahead of time and see now that he’s not going to be good. It’s literally the lowest possible bar, but he doesn’t want to extend the war to personally stay out of prison. I don’t think there’s anything that Gaza could conceivably do to make peace with the Netanyahu administration, because they’re not looking for peace- Bibi wants to avoid prison and others like Ben-Gvir enjoy their suffering. Eisenkot might be willing to stop the slaughter and allow aid through, especially because Israel is aware of the drop in their approval ratings. Eisenkot might care enough about Jews to want to make the world safer for them, and he might realize that the plan of conflating Judaism and Israel while committing genocide with the latter is making it less safe.
He also might not, he might continue exactly as Netanyahu has been doing, but we know there’s no chance with bibi.