Eisenkot-led bloc agrees to nominate Yashar’s Matan Kahana for Knesset speaker

Leaders of the Zionist opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said they would nominate former minister Matan Kahana, No. 5 in Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party, to be Knesset speaker, following days of negotiations.

Eisenkot, Democrats chief Yair Golan, Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, B’Yachad chief Naftali Bennett and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, Bennett’s deputy in B’Yachad, also said in the joint statement that Liberman would lead the powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Incoming B’Yachad MK Liran Avisar Ben Horin, the former Communications Ministry director general, will chair the Finance Committee, according to the statement. The No. 5 B’Yachad candidate, who is entering the Knesset for the first time, will be the committee’s first female chairperson.

The finalized makeup of the committee will be submitted for Knesset approval on Wednesday, the statement said, adding that the parties have also reached an agreement on special committees, with details to follow.

The announcement of the identities of the committee heads and the nominee for speaker came as the 26th Knesset was set to be sworn in Tuesday, two weeks after an election that saw Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition lose its parliamentary majority.

Bennett and Liberman had initially backed Lapid for Knesset speaker, but Eisenkot insisted the position go to a Yashar party member. Eisenkot and Liberman reached an agreement on the matter in a meeting on Monday, according to Hebrew media.

Kahana, the nominee for speaker, entered the Knesset in 2019 on a right-wing ticket led by Bennett, and later served as religious affairs minister in the Bennett- and Lapid-led government that unseated Netanyahu in 2021-2022.

After the fall of that government, Kahana joined former IDF chief Benny Gantz’s Blue and White, but bolted the centrist party along with Eisenkot in 2025 to form Yashar.

The Zionist anti-Netanyahu bloc is seeking to replace the incumbent speaker, Amir Ohana of Netanyahu’s Likud party, as soon as possible. Ohana has said he will schedule a session on picking his successor within a week if a majority of lawmakers formally request it.

Netanyahu’s Zionist opponents control just 48 of 120 seats in the incoming Knesset, compared with 53 for parties in Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

Arab parties control the remaining 19 seats, but the leaders of all the Zionist anti-Netanyahu parties, other than Golan, have rejected them as partners in government.

Amid the deadlock, Liberman has called for a compromise with Haredi parties on exempting ultra-Orthodox men from military service, backtracking on his own years-long pledge and on a central plank in the Zionist anti-Netanyahu camp’s election pitch.

Haredi parties, long part of Netanyahu’s coalition, control 13 seats — just enough to give the so-called “change bloc” a majority in the Knesset.

Foreign Minister Sa’ar to also serve as interior minister, Likud says

Meanwhile, the Likud party said Netanyahu would bring to the cabinet’s approval on Monday a motion to make Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar interior minister in addition to his current role as foreign minister.

The position was initially offered to Likud faction chair MK Ofir Katz, who turned it down to work on coordinating “the right-wing bloc’s maneuvers in the Knesset during this time,” the party’s statement said.

Sa’ar had been interior minister in Netanyahu’s 2013-2014 government, which also included Liberman, Lapid and Bennett in key roles.

There has been no interior minister since July 2025, when Moshe Arbel of the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party Shas resigned amid a coalition dispute over the Haredi draft issue, and Netanyahu assumed some of his responsibilities.

Under pressure from the High Court of Justice to fill the position, Netanyahu in August agreed to appoint an interior minister.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.