‘Stop climbing trees’: Herzog offers party leaders ladders down, signals push for unity government

President Isaac Herzog on Sunday urged Israel’s party leaders to “stop climbing trees, and face the reality” of the election results, as rival blocs began setting out their positions on the formation of the next government, ahead of formal consultations at the President’s Residence this week.

“This coming Wednesday, I will receive the official election results from the Central Elections Committee chairman… Justice Noam Sohlberg,” Herzog said at a state memorial ceremony for Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann. “Afterward, I will begin consultations at the President’s Residence. The President’s Residence will be wide open to all factions and parties.”

Herzog will ask the leaders of the Knesset factions whom they recommend for prime minister. He said he hoped they would come with an “open mind,” and be ready to “find creative solutions to prevent another election,” noting that candidates inevitably “climb high trees” during a campaign.

“But the elections are over, the election results are an established fact — they are reality,” Herzog continued. “And this is the time to tell all the leaders: stop climbing trees, and face reality. This week at the President’s Residence, we will try to put up ladders, to enable the leaders to face reality, in a measured and careful manner.”

The final results give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc 53 seats and the Jewish-led anti-Netanyahu parties 48, leaving neither with enough seats to form a government. The Arab-led Joint List and Ra’am gained a record 19 seats, making them potential key players in the formation of the government. Netanyahu’s opponents collectively hold 67 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, but Yashar, B’Yachad and Yisrael Beytenu previously said they would not sit in a coalition with the Arab, non-Zionist factions.

Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi said Saturday to Channel 12 that his party would recommend that a candidate from the anti-Netanyahu Zionist parties receive the mandate, with Gadi Eisenkot the presumed choice, and pledged outside support for an alternative government.

הבחירות הסתיימו ותוצאות הבחירות הן עובדה קיימת – זה הזמן למנהיגים כולם לעצור את הטיפוס על העצים ולהתמקם מול המציאות הזו. השבוע בבית הנשיא, ננסה להניח סולמות, כדי לאפשר למנהיגים – להתמקם מול המציאות הזו, בצורה שקולה וזהירה.

דברים שאמרתי היום בטקס האזכרה הממלכתי לנשיא הראשון של… pic.twitter.com/w9PMaF7xQP

Advertisement

— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) November 1, 2026

Ra’am is also expected to recommend Eisenkot, while Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman have yet to make an unequivocal public commitment.

Democrats chairman Yair Golan, in the opposition bloc, has spoken with Joint List leaders Yousef Jabareen and Tibi about possible cooperation in coalition negotiations, Hebrew media outlets reported.

Last week, Golan met with Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas, as well as other opposition leaders, as part of the push to oust Netanyahu following the election.

Golan is the only member of the Jewish-led anti-Netanyahu bloc of parties to openly support cooperating with Arab parties to form a government, pushing to sit in a coalition with Ra’am.

Several Hebrew-language outlets have reported that senior United Torah Judaism figures may be prepared to support an Eisenkot-led government from outside the coalition without first requiring passage of a draft law, in exchange for legislation and budgets for the Haredi community, and progress toward a future conscription arrangement.

UTJ chairman Yaakov Asher said before the election that the party would not enter any government unless legislation regulating the military-service status of yeshiva students was passed, while also declaring that the party no longer considered itself bound to a political bloc.

Netanyahu ally suggests unity guarantees

Meanwhile, the mayor of the southern city Dimona, Benny Biton, a senior Likud figure and Netanyahu ally, said Sunday in an interview to Kan Reshet Bet radio that the prime minister wanted a national unity government, and floated a plan under which Herzog and US President Donald Trump would serve as guarantors for an agreement between the rival camps.

“I’m saying this firsthand: Benjamin Netanyahu wants unity,” Biton said.

“I am telling you this with certainty, not as any kind of bluff and not as part of any campaign,” he pledged.

Biton said he had spoken with Herzog on Saturday and argued that the president, together with Trump, could help overcome opposition distrust of Netanyahu, who has repeatedly undercut his partners in unity governments and broken his promises to them.

Biton acknowledged that he did not know whether a unity government had been discussed directly in a recent conversation between Netanyahu and Trump.

He urged Eisenkot, Liberman and Bennett to enter negotiations. “Leave the ego aside. We’ve finished the election campaign,” he said. Addressing Eisenkot directly, he added: “I’m appealing to you, Gadi Eisenkot — you were [IDF] chief of staff. I’m appealing as a paratrooper to a Golani soldier: Put everything aside. The State of Israel is in danger right now. A government must be formed, immediately.”

Biton said he had spoken Sunday morning with United Torah Judaism figure Motti Babchik about military service for ultra-Orthodox men. According to Biton, Babchik told him: “Benny, the issue of recruitment to the IDF can be solved. After October 7, the Haredim also understood that there is a different formula.”

Biton also warned the opposition against using its parliamentary majority to replace Likud’s Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana without an agreement with Netanyahu’s bloc, saying such a move would amount to “a declaration of war” and could jeopardize unity talks. “If they are going to make unilateral parliamentary moves, that is a red line,” he said.

The anti-Netanyahu parties have been discussing using their 67-seat majority in the new Knesset to remove Ohana shortly after lawmakers are sworn in on November 10, even before a new government is formed.

Golan told Channel 12 on Friday that replacing the speaker would be among the bloc’s first moves, followed by appointing committee heads and moving to establish a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

Tibi said Saturday to Channel 12 that the Joint List would support a vote to replace Ohana and would also back establishing a state commission of inquiry into the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion and massacre, two measures the anti-Netanyahu bloc plans to prioritize after the new Knesset is sworn in on November 10.

Meanwhile, Likud’s coalition whip, MK Ofir Katz, ruled out a rotation agreement that would see Netanyahu share the premiership in a potential unity government.

“We oppose rotation, after the election results showed a high level of confidence in us,” he said, according to Army Radio. “Whoever wants can join the government on the basis of the existing coalition.”