Benjamin Netanyahu went into Israel’s election asking voters for another government. Gadi Eisenkot went into it asking them to end Netanyahu’s rule. Two days later, with neither man able to assemble the 61 seats needed to govern, Israeli politics is already producing a scenario in which both could get part of what they wanted.
The proposal reported by Channel 14 on Wednesday would leave Netanyahu in the prime minister’s office for another two years before transferring power to Eisenkot. Netanyahu would then leave political life and receive a full presidential pardon in the corruption proceedings that have followed him through much of the past decade.
On paper, it answers several problems at once. Netanyahu remains prime minister rather than being removed immediately after the election. Eisenkot eventually gets the office he campaigned for. Israel avoids another election. A government built around Likud and Eisenkot’s Yashar party would have the parliamentary numbers to govern without depending on either the far right or Arab parties.
It would also offer Netanyahu something no election result can give him on its own: a negotiated end to the legal case that has become inseparable from his political career.
That is why the proposal is attracting attention before the final votes have even been counted.
There is one problem. Almost everyone who would have to make it happen has reason to deny it, resist it or demand that somebody else move first.
President Isaac Herzog’s office has called the report “a complete lie.” Eisenkot said only last week that he would not serve under Netanyahu even in a rotation arrangement. Netanyahu used election night to call for a “strong right-wing government,” not a government with the man who spent the campaign trying to replace him.
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| Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar ('Straight') party, waves an Israeli flag onstage after the release of the first exit poll results in Israel's general election [Ariel Schalit/AP] |
The proposal therefore sits in the space Israeli politics often enters after an inconclusive election: somewhere between fantasy, leverage and a deal that becomes possible only when every other route has failed.
The election created the opening
The arithmetic is what keeps the idea alive.
With most votes counted, Netanyahu’s bloc was projected at 53 seats and Eisenkot’s opposition bloc at 48. Arab-led parties were heading for 19 seats, their strongest showing in years. None of those numbers produces the 61-seat majority needed to command the Knesset.
Netanyahu finished ahead, but not far enough ahead to govern with his existing partners. Eisenkot’s route is different but no easier. He could theoretically reach a majority with support from Arab parties, but parts of the Jewish opposition have resisted that arrangement and Avigdor Liberman has rejected the idea of a minority government dependent on outside Arab support.
That leaves both leaders confronting a version of the same problem.
Netanyahu needs lawmakers who did not run with him. Eisenkot needs either partners who reject relying on Arab parties or support from parties that spent the campaign opposing Netanyahu but do not necessarily want to sit together in one coalition.
Another election is the alternative if neither side solves the equation.
Israel has been here before. Between 2019 and 2022, repeated deadlocks produced five elections, caretaker governments and coalition arrangements designed less around ideological agreement than around the need to prevent yet another trip to the polls.
The reported Netanyahu-Eisenkot proposal belongs to that tradition.
The deal is built around the one thing Netanyahu cannot win at the ballot box
Netanyahu can win seats. He cannot vote away his criminal trial.
He has been on trial since 2020 on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three cases. He denies wrongdoing. The proceedings have followed him through elections, coalition negotiations, judicial confrontations and war, and they would remain after this election even if he forms another government.
A pardon changes that calculation.
Netanyahu submitted a pardon request last year, but Herzog has so far resisted acting on it while the trial remains unresolved. In April, the president said efforts to reach a plea agreement should first be exhausted before he considered clemency.
That is why the reported arrangement is more than a rotation agreement. It would tie the end of Netanyahu’s political career to the end of his legal jeopardy.
For Netanyahu, the exchange would be severe but comprehensible: two final years as prime minister, followed by retirement without the risk that his political exit leads into years of litigation or a possible conviction.
For his opponents, the calculation would run in the opposite direction. They would have to allow the man they campaigned to remove to remain prime minister for half another term in exchange for a date certain on which he finally leaves politics.
Neither side gets what it told voters it wanted.
Both might get something they cannot obtain alone.
The pardon is legally possible, but it is not routine
The president of Israel has broad clemency powers, but granting a pardon during an ongoing criminal trial would be an exceptional step.
Israeli presidential practice normally waits until judicial proceedings are complete. The most cited exception is the 1980s Bus 300 affair, when senior Shin Bet officials received pardons before trial. The Supreme Court upheld the authority to issue such pardons but treated the power as extraordinary.
Netanyahu’s situation is therefore not covered by an ordinary administrative path in which a president simply erases an unfinished trial.
A pardon would have to survive political and legal scrutiny, and the president’s decision normally moves through the Justice Ministry’s pardons process before receiving the required countersignature from a government minister.
That explains why Herzog has previously pushed the idea of a plea agreement rather than moving directly to clemency.
It also explains why the alleged deal would be controversial even among Israelis who want Netanyahu’s political career to end. A bargain in which a sitting prime minister receives legal relief as part of negotiations over who governs the country would immediately raise questions about equality before the law and the use of presidential powers to resolve a parliamentary deadlock.
The political appeal of the proposal comes from the same place as its constitutional discomfort: the criminal case and the struggle to form a government have become entangled.
Eisenkot would have to reverse a promise he made days ago
The other obstacle is Eisenkot himself.
On Oct. 21, less than a week before the election, he was asked directly whether he would serve in a rotation government under Netanyahu. His answer left little room for interpretation.
He said he would not serve under Netanyahu and would resign within an hour if such an arrangement were imposed.
The reason was not simply political competition. Eisenkot has made Netanyahu’s responsibility for the failures surrounding Oct. 7, 2023 central to his argument for replacing him.
He joined Netanyahu’s emergency government after the Hamas attack and later left the war cabinet, accusing the prime minister of allowing political considerations to interfere with the prosecution of the war. His campaign has called for a state commission of inquiry into Oct. 7 and presented questions of responsibility and accountability as part of the election itself.
A deal that leaves Netanyahu in power for another two years would therefore require Eisenkot to explain why the election result changed a principle he presented as categorical before voting day.
That does not make the deal impossible. Coalition politics has repeatedly forced Israeli leaders to abandon campaign promises. It does make the political price visible.
Eisenkot would have to persuade voters who backed him to end Netanyahu’s premiership that allowing Netanyahu to remain until 2028 is the fastest available route to ending it permanently.
Netanyahu has his own reason to hesitate
The arrangement would also demand something Netanyahu has spent years refusing to offer: an end date.
His political longevity has depended partly on his ability to survive moments when opponents believed his career was almost finished. Criminal charges did not remove him. Repeated elections did not remove him. Coalition collapses did not remove him. Oct. 7 did not remove him. Years of protests did not remove him.
The reported deal asks him to sign away the possibility of surviving one more time.
That is not a small concession for a politician whose central argument has repeatedly been that only he can manage Israel’s security and its relationship with Washington.
Channel 14 suggested Netanyahu would insist on taking the first two years of a rotation partly because that period would overlap with Donald Trump’s presidency. The relationship with Trump has again become part of Netanyahu’s domestic political case, particularly after the war with Iran and the expansion of U.S.-Israeli military cooperation.
Two more years would allow Netanyahu to continue working with Trump while presenting his departure later as a negotiated retirement rather than an electoral defeat.
But once Netanyahu accepts an enforceable rotation and a retirement commitment, control of the clock moves away from him.
Israel has seen rotation agreements break down before. Netanyahu’s 2020 unity government with Benny Gantz was built around a rotating premiership, but the coalition collapsed before Gantz’s scheduled turn arrived. That history is one reason any future partner would demand stronger guarantees before trusting a similar arrangement.
Eisenkot would not merely need Netanyahu’s promise. He would need a mechanism that makes the transfer difficult to avoid.
Herzog is central even while denying the story
The presidency has limited executive power in Israel, but the office becomes important after an election with no obvious majority.
Once official results are delivered, Herzog will consult the parliamentary factions and decide which Knesset member has the best chance of forming a government. That does not allow him to create a coalition himself, but it gives him a role at the point where private negotiations turn into the formal process of government formation.
Herzog has already said he wants to avoid another election. He has also spent months encouraging some form of negotiated resolution to Netanyahu’s criminal case.
That combination makes him a logical figure around whom speculation about a unity arrangement would form.
His office, however, has repeatedly denied that he has been negotiating a Netanyahu-Eisenkot coalition. It issued denials before the election when similar reports emerged and rejected the Channel 14 report again after voting, saying official results have not yet even been presented to the president.
That denial has to be taken seriously. There is no confirmed evidence that Herzog has put the reported two-year formula to Netanyahu and Eisenkot or that either leader has accepted it.
What is established is narrower: the president wants to prevent another election, has previously supported negotiations to resolve Netanyahu’s legal case and will soon have a formal role in deciding who receives the first mandate to form a government.
Those facts make the scenario politically conceivable without making the Channel 14 account proven.
A unity government would rearrange more than the premiership
If Likud and Yashar eventually agreed to govern together, the consequences would extend beyond the identity of the prime minister.
Such a coalition could push the ultra-nationalist parties of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich out of government, depending on its composition. Netanyahu has relied on those parties during his current term, but a broad coalition with Eisenkot would no longer mathematically require them.
That would affect debates over Gaza, the West Bank, settlements, military conscription, the judiciary and the relationship with Washington.
It could also reshape the inquiry into Oct. 7.
Eisenkot has demanded a state commission of inquiry into the security and political failures that preceded the attack. Netanyahu has resisted the version of such an inquiry sought by his opponents. Any unity agreement would have to confront that dispute rather than simply divide the premiership into two two-year periods.
Military service for the ultra-Orthodox would present another test. The issue helped fracture Netanyahu’s previous coalition and has become part of Eisenkot’s argument about equality of responsibility after years of war.
A government broad enough to include Likud and the centrist opposition could theoretically legislate where Netanyahu’s narrower right-wing coalition could not. It could just as easily collapse when those questions move from slogans into votes.
The attraction of unity is that it solves the problem of 61.
Its weakness is that it places parties together that disagree on much of what the next government would actually have to do.
The Arab vote has changed the coalition calculation
One reason unity is being discussed so quickly is the performance of Arab-led parties.
With roughly 19 seats projected, they could become the parliamentary force that determines whether Eisenkot has any alternative route to the premiership. But using those seats creates political problems inside his own prospective coalition.
Some opposition leaders are prepared to consider cooperation. Others have rejected forming a government dependent on Arab support.
Netanyahu has already attacked such a possibility, portraying an opposition government backed by Arab parties as a danger. His political strategy has repeatedly used the prospect of Arab parties influencing government formation to consolidate the right.
The result produces a paradox for Eisenkot.
The parties that give the anti-Netanyahu camp a numerical route around Likud may also make that route harder to sell to some of the Jewish parties he needs.
A unity deal with Netanyahu avoids that problem.
That is one reason the reported rotation formula may keep returning even if Eisenkot rejects it initially. Parliamentary arithmetic can make an option more attractive after every other combination has been tested.
Trump is in the background of the deal too
Channel 14’s report included another revealing detail: Netanyahu would want the first two years so that he could continue working with Trump.
That makes the U.S. president part of an Israeli coalition calculation without formally being a participant in it.
Trump has publicly supported Netanyahu and repeatedly called for his corruption case to be ended. He has urged Herzog to grant him a pardon and has treated Netanyahu as a partner in U.S. strategy toward Iran and the wider region.
A Netanyahu-Eisenkot government would therefore emerge during a period when Washington has its own preferences about Israeli leadership and regional policy.
There have already been reports that figures around Trump favour a broad Israeli government that excludes some far-right ministers. Whether the White House would actively pressure either Netanyahu or Eisenkot to accept a rotation remains unconfirmed.
But the political logic is easy to see. A broad government could offer Washington more stability in dealing with Israel while preserving Netanyahu as prime minister during the period when Trump expects to pursue decisions on Iran, regional security and possible diplomatic agreements.
For Netanyahu, that relationship strengthens the argument for serving first.
For Eisenkot, it creates another reason why waiting two years might be presented not as submission to Netanyahu but as part of a managed transition.
The simplest outcome may still be another election
All of this remains hypothetical because Israeli politics has a less elegant solution available: fail to form a government and vote again.
If Netanyahu cannot find eight more lawmakers and Eisenkot cannot assemble a majority through Arab support or defections from the right, the coalition process can eventually collapse.
Netanyahu would remain caretaker prime minister during that period, retaining much of the authority associated with the office. That may give him little incentive to accept retirement immediately, especially if he believes another campaign could improve his position.
The opposition has the opposite fear. Leaving Netanyahu in office during months of deadlock gives him time to reorganise the right, use the premiership as a political platform and enter another election still holding the office his opponents failed to take from him.
This is the pressure that gives unusual compromises their life.
A Netanyahu-Eisenkot rotation may look implausible while both men believe they have another path. It becomes less implausible if Netanyahu cannot reach 61, Eisenkot cannot build a government with Arab support and neither side wants to risk what another election could produce.
That point has not been reached.
Israel is still counting votes.
The bargain would ask both men to redefine victory
The proposed deal is politically striking because it would require both leaders to tell their supporters that winning now means accepting something they spent the election rejecting.
Netanyahu would remain prime minister, but only by agreeing in advance to the end of his political career.
Eisenkot would eventually become prime minister, but only after allowing the man he described as unfit to govern for another two years.
Herzog would help prevent another election, but only through a political arrangement involving a pardon his office says he is not currently negotiating.
The opposition would remove Netanyahu eventually, but not immediately. Likud would keep Netanyahu immediately, but not indefinitely.
That is why the story should not yet be read as news of a deal.
It is news of the kind of deal Israel’s election result may eventually force its leaders to consider.
The final ballots still have to be counted. Herzog has not yet begun his formal consultations. Netanyahu is still calling for a right-wing government, and Eisenkot has publicly said he will not serve beneath him.
If those positions survive the coalition negotiations, there will be no rotation.
If they do not, the election that failed to produce a winner may end by giving each of its two main rivals half a term — and asking Netanyahu to make the second half of the bargain the last act of his political career.
Sources
- Anadolu Agency — Israeli channel reports proposed Netanyahu-Eisenkot power-sharing deal
- Associated Press — Netanyahu and top rival face postelection choices that could redefine Israeli politics
- Associated Press — Takeaways from Israel’s inconclusive election
- Reuters — Netanyahu, Eisenkot stake rival claims to lead Israel after deadlocked vote
- Reuters — Israel’s president says he wants a deal reached in Netanyahu case before pardon decision
- Ynet — Herzog reportedly seeks Netanyahu-Eisenkot unity government after election
- Times of Israel — Eisenkot vows not to serve in a Netanyahu-led government, even under rotation deal
- Israel Democracy Institute — The Authority of the President of the State of Israel to Issue Pardons