Netanyahu again urges unity talks ‘without preconditions’; Eisenkot rejects PM’s ‘spin’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday publicly called on Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot to enter a unity government, once again arguing that a government that relied on Arab parties would be unable to confront the Iranian threat.

“Let us go into the room, without preconditions,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. “Put aside all disputes and all boycotts, and reach agreements for Israel’s security and future.”

In contrast to previous calls, Netanyahu did not specify that he must lead such a government.

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.

Eisenkot dismissed the offer as “another spin,” saying Likud and Yashar’s party negotiating teams had already scheduled a meeting for Sunday, before Netanyahu’s statement.

The exchange came as Channel 13 reported that Yashar is planning to offer Likud a chance to join a unity government, led only by Eisenkot, without a rotation agreement, meaning Netanyahu would not be prime minister.

“We will agree to compromises, but not on the matter of prime minister,” a senior source in Eisenkot’s orbit was quoted as saying.

According to the report, Yashar will strive to find Netanyahu “a framework that enables him to deal with political matters.” In addition, he will be offered arrangements regarding his lodgings, security, and other personal matters.

Religious Zionism will also be offered to join the coalition.

Eisenkot had hoped to build a coalition around the four Jewish-led parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc. But they garnered only 48 seats in the 120-seat Knesset — while the Netanyahu-led bloc won 53 and the two Arab parties won 19 — leaving them dependent on support from Arab-led parties or additional partners to take office.

Netanyahu has repeatedly called for a government including all Jewish-majority parties, while continuing to attack his opponents, including in an acrimonious speech at the opening of the Knesset last week in which he insisted lawmakers from the two Arab-led parties, Ra’am and the Joint List, are seeking Israel’s destruction.

In his Saturday night statement, Netanyahu claimed the security briefing he gave to Eisenkot on Thursday “only strengthened my understanding of how essential it is at this time to form a national unity government, a government that will include all parties that support the existence of Israel as the state of the Jewish people.”

He said agreements should also be reached “on the issue of conscription, which can be solved together with representatives of the Haredi public.”

He was referring to the question of drafting members of the ultra-Orthodox community into the army, which is a key negotiating point in coalition-building efforts. While the Haredi community opposes the draft, legislating a universal draft has been identified by Eisenkot as one of his four guiding principles.

Netanyahu also claimed in his statement that Iran is working to restore its nuclear weapons program and will use the bomb against Israel, less than a year after launching a war alongside the US in February, which he said at the time had left Tehran “fighting for its own survival.”

“We must remove this existential threat from us once and for all,” said Netanyahu, who has previously declared bringing down the Iranian regime as a goal to aspire to.

Confronting the Iranian threat cannot be done with “a narrow government, or a government that relies on supporters of terrorism,” he said, referring to Arab-led parties.

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

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

He added 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. Anybody who held a central position of power when Hamas invaded on October 7, 2023, must step away from life, he has said.

He said 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,” he said.

Religious Zionism, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, is a far-right Jewish party in the outgoing coalition, though Eisenkot has in the past indicated he is willing to work with it, unlike Otzma Yehudit

The bloc of opposition parties led by Eisenkot is keen to replace the Speaker in order to take control of the parliamentary agenda.

Yashar party sources responded to Netanyahu’s remarks by telling Channel 12 that Eisenkot remains intent on ousting the prime minister, despite Netanyahu invoking national security as cause for a unity government.

Nothing in Thursday’s security briefing “caused us to change our conviction that Netanyahu must be ousted and that [the anti-Netanyahu bloc’s] oversight over Israel’s security is urgent,” the sources were quoted as saying.

The anti-Netanyahu bloc intends to achieve part of that oversight from Monday, when Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman is set to become chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

At the meeting, Netanyahu did not tell Eisenkot that he had dispatched Mossad chief Roman Gofman to meet with senior American officials regarding the imperative to thwart Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the Channel 12 report noted.

Meanwhile, a freshman Likud lawmaker, Elishai Madan, set up a protest tent on Saturday night with a call for a unity government led by Netanyahu, with Eisenkot’s party within the coalition.

In a video he published, Madan said, “I am going to Jerusalem to set up a tent next to the Knesset in a call for unity. I intend to sit in the tent, night and day, in the cold and rain, in order to give voice to the large parts of the people who don’t stop contacting me with longing for unity. ”

Madan lost both his legs in a blast from a booby-trapped tunnel shaft while serving in the army during fighting in the Gaza Strip in November 2023.