Top Arab MK lays out plan to oust Netanyahu even if election ends with deadlock

Ayman Odeh, head of the mostly Arab Hadash-Ta’al party that is expected to team up with Balad ahead of the upcoming election, tells Radio 103FM that his alliance is willing to recommend one of the Zionist rivals of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as premier after the vote, even if this won’t result in a viable coalition, in order to replace Netanyahu.

If, as many polls currently show is likely, no coherent bloc ends up securing a Knesset majority for a new coalition, Israel will go to repeat elections until there is a decisive result, as happened in 2019-2021 when there were five elections in close succession.

By default, Netanyahu is set to remain acting prime minister throughout those repeat elections.

But Odeh suggests that, even if the Zionist opposition parties — whose right flank refuses to form a coalition with Arab parties — fail to win 61 seats in the 120-member Knesset, triggering new elections, his party will team up with those parties to make sure that the acting prime minister isn’t Netanyahu.

In Israel’s coalition system, any lawmaker who, after the election, gets the recommendation of at least 61 MKs as prime minister can get the opportunity from the president to form a ruling government.

Odeh’s suggestion is that, while Hadash-Ta’al won’t be included in a coalition, it will recommend a Netanyahu rival — likely Gadi Eisenkot, according to current polling — as prime minister and vote to form a coalition, replacing the premier. Then, that “coalition” will immediately fall and new elections will be held — but without Netanyahu having the luxury of staying in power in an acting capacity until his rivals win outright.

Odeh notes that his parties twice recommended Benny Gantz as prime minister during the repeat election cycles of 2019-2021, but Gantz lacked the “courage” to go through with this plan.