Bennett and Lapid's faction tells Herzog it backs Eisenkot, rejects unity talk

Representatives of the Beyachad faction, the joint list of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, met President Isaac Herzog at his official residence and recommended that Gadi Eisenkot be given the task of forming Israel's next government. News.co.il reported that the recommendation brought the number of lawmakers backing Eisenkot to 46, against 19 for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The delegation included faction chair Eitan Ginzburg and Members of Knesset Ram Ben Barak and Meirav Cohen. According to reporting from the room by N12 political correspondent Dafna Liel, the faction's representatives told Herzog that Eisenkot is able to put a government together, adding that the open question is how he would do it. Two of the three used the meeting to argue against a broad unity government, a theme the president himself raised in an exchange about parties ruling each other out.

What the president's consultations are

After a general election, Israel's president holds a round of meetings with every party faction elected to the Knesset, the country's parliament. Each faction tells the president which of its members, or which leader from another party, it believes should be asked to form a coalition. The president then hands that mandate to the candidate judged to have the best chance of assembling a governing majority. The role is largely ceremonial, but this step gives the president some discretion, which is why parties use the meetings to make their case publicly. The tallies quoted by Israeli media through the day are running counts of recommendations, not seats in a finished coalition.

Who spoke, and what they said

Ginzburg, who chairs the faction, said the party was determined to help Eisenkot form a government quickly. The wording differs slightly between outlets: the channel of commentator Amit Segal quoted him as saying "as quickly as possible", while News.co.il rendered it as "quickly".

Ben Barak, a former deputy head of the Mossad, told Herzog that Israel faces an existential danger because of its position in the world, according to Ynet. On the question of national unity, Segal's channel quoted him saying unity is "very desirable" but can only be built with people who share the same values.

Liel reported a direct exchange between the two men. According to N12, Ben Barak told the president he knew Herzog strongly dislikes disqualifications, the practice of parties declaring in advance that they will not sit with certain rivals. Herzog replied that, unequivocally, he believes such disqualifications are "our great mistakes as a nation".

Cohen took the hardest line. Ynet and N12 both quoted her answering the idea of unity by saying that one does not do business with scorpions. In the fuller version carried by N12, she said she believes in sitting with people who hold different world views and considers that a value. But she said that when she served in a unity government during the coronavirus period, she ended up harming her country instead of doing it good, and that she had learned from the experience.

Why the unity question keeps coming up

Herzog's reply to Ben Barak signals that the president sees mutual vetoes between parties as an obstacle. The faction's answer, delivered by both Ben Barak and Cohen, was that shared values are a precondition and that its past experience of a power-sharing government was negative. Cohen's reference is to a period when rival blocs governed together during the pandemic, an arrangement she now describes as damaging.

The names in this report

• Gadi Eisenkot: the candidate the faction recommended to form the government.
• Beyachad: Hebrew for "together", the faction News.co.il describes as belonging to Bennett and Lapid, both former prime ministers.
• Eitan Ginzburg: chair of the Beyachad faction in the Knesset.
• Ram Ben Barak and Meirav Cohen: Members of Knesset for the faction who addressed the president.

What the reports do not say

The running count of 46 recommendations for Eisenkot and 19 for Netanyahu comes from News.co.il alone, and none of the reports says how many factions were still to meet the president. None of the faction's members is quoted naming Netanyahu directly when rejecting unity, and no response from Netanyahu or his Likud party has been reported. The reports do not say whether Bennett or Lapid attended in person, how Eisenkot would assemble a majority, or when Herzog intends to announce whom he will task with forming the government.