Opposition parties said planning to quickly replace Knesset Speaker Ohana

The political parties opposing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are planning to oust the current Knesset speaker, Likud’s Amir Ohana, shortly after the new Knesset is sworn in next month, according to Friday reports.

The “change bloc” — Yashar, B’Yachad, The Democrats and Yisrael Beytenu — together with the Arab-led parties the Joint List and Ra’am, control the majority of the 120 Knesset seats, with 67 seats, and will therefore be able to remove Ohana from his current position.

Channel 12 political analyst Barak Seri reported on Friday that a deal to oust Ohana had already been reached. While Seri did not say who the likely candidate is, reports have indicated that the opposition parties were considering tapping former prime minister Yair Lapid.

Speaking with Seri on Channel 12 on Friday evening, Democrats chairman Yair Golan said “the first thing we will do” after swearing in the 26th Knesset is to appoint a new speaker, then appoint heads of Knesset committees and establish a state commission of inquiry into the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel.

Seri reported that the vote on a new speaker would likely happen the same day the new Knesset is sworn in on November 10, regardless of the ongoing talks to form the next coalition.

Kan news also reported Friday that the opposition bloc planned to move swiftly to replace Ohana. However, it said Liberman was not necessarily on board with the move, as he remains reluctant to cooperate with the Knesset’s Arab parties, whose support will be necessary to make the switch.

If Liberman does not wish to vote in favor, other party leaders are asking his party to abstain, which would still allow the opposition a simple majority in the plenum, the report said.

Speaking to Channel 12, Golan also expressed optimism that the change bloc could form the next government with the support of the Arab-led parties, despite Liberman’s public refusal to entertain the notion.

Golan strongly rejected the idea of any unity government that includes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, saying, “Absolutely not. That would be another Netanyahu government… he is a national security danger.”

Golan argued that the opposition parties “can establish a government and we must establish a government,” despite receiving only 48 seats out of the 120-member Knesset. With Ra’am, the bloc would have 56 seats, while the Joint List controls another 11 seats.

Golan said he met with Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot, B’Yachad No. 2 Yair Lapid and Ra’am chief Mansour Abbas on Thursday, “and I found all three deeply determined to form a government.”

Ra’am could join the change bloc in a coalition and the Joint List could provide support from outside, Golan said, adding that the Arab parties would agree not to hold seats on the security cabinet due to the “sensitivities of the Israeli public.”

He reiterated that the opposition alliance “will form a government that I believe can be stable, but even if its tenure is limited, we will be able, in a relatively short time, to save Israeli democracy and, most importantly, Israel’s security.”

Channel 12 reported that Liberman and Lapid were set to meet as early as Saturday to discuss the issue of replacing Ohana.

Liberman reiterated on Friday his party’s refusal to join any coalition that includes the two Arab-led parties in the next Knesset. “We will not sit with supporters of terrorism!” he wrote on Facebook, citing a number of statements and actions from Ra’am and Joint List MKs.

He pointed to Joint List MK Ofer Cassif — the faction’s only Jewish member — supporting South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, Ra’am MK Yasser Hujirat’s refusal to call Hamas a terrorist organization, and Joint List MK Osama Saadi singing the Palestinian national anthem on election night.

The High Court last month overturned a Central Elections Committee decision to disqualify both Ra’am and the Joint List from running, but the court pressured Sami Abu Shehadeh, the chairman of Balad — one of the three factions in the Joint List — to drop out of the race or face disqualification for expressing support for armed struggle against Israel.

“Anyone who wants to rely on supporters of terrorism is welcome to do so,” Liberman wrote. “Yisrael Beytenu will not be part of it.”

Former DM calls for cooperation with Ra’am

Moshe Ya’alon, a former hawkish defense minister turned vocal Netanyahu critic, called on the Jewish-led opposition parties on Friday to form a government with Ra’am and offer a ministerial post to its chair Abbas.

In a lengthy post on X, Ya’alon, who said he knows the Ra’am leader both personally and professionally, sang Abbas’s praises, calling him a “courageous Arab Israeli leader” and noting that he has both recognized Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and supports universal recruitment, either to the military or in national service, two conditions set out by Eisenkot for working with any party.

He contrasted Abbas’s actions with those of far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, recalling how, during the violent clashes in mixed Jewish-Arab cities in May 2021, he visited the sites of the violence “to douse” flames fanned by “Ben Gvir’s Kahanists” — a reference to the late far-right rabbi Mair Kahane.

“I know Itamar Ben Gvir from his time as a subject of Shin Bet surveillance, when he incited hatred, agitation, and violence in the Hebron area,” Ya’alon wrote. “He was convicted on eight separate indictments for his actions, including support for a (Jewish) terror organization.

“I know Bezalel Smotrich from the period leading up to the Disengagement, when he was arrested on suspicion of planning to detonate 700 liters of fuel on Route 1,” the former defense minister and IDF chief continued.

“Mansour Abbas is not Jewish, but I would hope that most Israeli citizens align more with his values than the values of the messianists, racists, and fascists.”

“Mansour Abbas needs to be appointed a minister in the Israeli government,” Ya’alon said. “Stop accepting the rules of the game by those who are responsible for October 7 and who are prepared to burn down the country just to stay in power.”

Party leaders name faction chairs

Meanwhile, incoming parties to the 26th Knesset have begun appointing Knesset faction chairs ahead of the swearing-in on November 10.

Eisenkot announced that incoming lawmaker Roy Folkman will serve as his party’s Knesset chair. Folkman was a member of Knesset for the now-defunct Kulanu party between 2015 and 2019, and served as its faction chair then as well.

Eisenkot praises Folkman as a man with “extensive political experience” who has the necessary “intellectual sharpness, creativity, and proven leadership ability” for the job.

מיניתי את חבר הכנסת המיועד רועי פולקמן ליו״ר סיעת ישר! בכנסת ה-26.

פולקמן עתיר ניסיון פוליטי וניחן בחדות מחשבתית, יצירתיות ויכולת הובלה מוכחת, שנדרשות על מנת להוביל את עבודת הסיעה.
אני בטוח ביכולתו להתחיל לממש את רצון הבוחר כבר עם פתיחת מושב הכנסת.

יש לנו משימה ואחריות גדולה… pic.twitter.com/h4yJNoFunh

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— Gadi Eisenkot – גדי איזנקוט (@gadi_eisenkot) October 30, 2026

B’Yachad’s Bennett, meanwhile, appointed MK Eitan Ginzburg, a member of Blue and White in the outgoing parliament, as his party’s Knesset chair.

Argentine-born Ginzburg previously served in several parliamentary roles, including as head of a number of Knesset committees. He also served as communications minister for a brief stint of some six weeks before the dissolution of the Netanyahu-Gantz government in June 2021.