Eisenkot calls Netanyahu’s unity offer ‘another spin,’ says talks already scheduled

Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot dismisses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer to negotiate a unity government as “another spin,” saying Likud and Yashar’s negotiating teams have already scheduled a meeting for tomorrow.

“He claims he wants unity, but disgraces a state occasion in the Knesset and divides and incites as if there were no tomorrow,” Eisenkot says. “Nice try, but these tricks don’t work on me. And they don’t work on the citizens of Israel, either.”

Netanyahu’s bloc lost its parliamentary majority in last month’s election, and Eisenkot was given the mandate to form a government by President Isaac Herzog last week.

The caretaker premier has called for a government including all Jewish-majority parties, while continuing to attack his opponents including in an acrimonious speech at the Knesset last week.

Eisenkot says Netanyahu is trying to obstruct a new government’s formation because he knows “there is an absolute majority” of Israelis and lawmakers opposed to him.

He adds that Likud could join an emergency government he would lead only with “recognition of the principles I have laid out and a break with the extremists,” an apparent reference to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party.

Eisenkot has repeatedly said that he is open to a government that includes anyone who accepts his four principles, including Likud without Netanyahu, whom he has said should not remain in power.

He says Likud’s next test is Tuesday’s vote on appointing Yashar MK Matan Kahana as Knesset speaker.

If Likud and Religious Zionism “truly want a genuine political partnership, as they claim, they must allow a proper democratic process to take place on schedule and instruct their lawmakers to support appointing Kahana.”