EASTORA REPORT | A day after a combative speech led a rival party to cancel coalition talks, Benjamin Netanyahu returned to the Knesset with a different message: Israel faces challenges he cannot fully disclose, and political unity is still possible.
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“I can’t tell you everything that I know,” the caretaker prime minister told reporters in Jerusalem on Wednesday, November 11. He spoke of enormous challenges and opportunities ahead, without identifying them. It was his second appeal in two days for rival parties to come together.
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Netanyahu pointed to Israelis who had stood together through years of war, from soldiers on the front lines to civilians under missile fire. Religious and secular citizens, people from the left and right, had fought shoulder to shoulder, he said. If they could unite under fire, he argued, their political representatives could do the same.
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But the invitation followed an unusually bitter opening to the new parliament. At Tuesday’s swearing-in ceremony, Netanyahu attacked the prospect of a government supported by Arab-led parties, accusing some lawmakers of backing terrorism and seeking Israel’s destruction. His opponents condemned those accusations and rejected his portrayal of Arab political participation.
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Gadi Eisenkot, whose Yashar party is trying to assemble the next government, responded by canceling a meeting scheduled for Wednesday with Netanyahu’s Likud. Yashar called the speech divisive and said the outgoing prime minister had chosen his political survival over national solidarity. Likud insisted it remained ready for talks about unity.
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The October 27 election left Netanyahu’s bloc with 53 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, short of the 61 needed for a majority. Eisenkot’s allies hold 48 seats, and Arab-led parties hold 19. President Isaac Herzog gave Eisenkot the mandate to form a government on November 8, with 28 days to build a coalition and a possible 14-day extension.
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On Wednesday, Netanyahu promised to keep reaching out. Eisenkot still holds the mandate to form a government, and the meeting that might have brought their parties together did not take place.