Jerusalem, Nov 6 (PTI): After two days of consultations with leaders of parties elected to the Knesset (Israeli parliament), President Isaac Herzog on Thursday evening said it is not clear to him who has the ability to form a government.
“I would like to update the public following the conclusion of the round of consultations with the Knesset factions. I met with the representatives of all the factions. The discussions were open, candid, and also probing. I asked difficult questions in an effort to help the parties and the public to break free from set ways of thinking and open their minds to other paths”, Herzog said.
“The picture is as follows: the representatives of factions totalling 67 members of Knesset recommended the Leader of the Yashar! party, Gadi Eisenkot, to form a government, while the representatives of factions totalling 46 members of Knesset recommended the Prime Minister and Leader of the Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, to form a government”, he added.
However, he went on to say that “the results of the consultations may appear clear, but the authority vested in me by law is to determine who has the ability to form a government, and that is not entirely clear, given the mutual vetoes between the blocs and within the blocs themselves.”
The Israeli President said that he would task a member of the Knesset with forming a government on Sunday.
The statement is surprising because, by precedent, the elected member with the most recommendations is generally tasked by the President to form a government.
“I will try to determine this directly and quickly, in personal talks with some of the party leaders. In these talks, I intend to leave no stone unturned in an effort to reach out and build a stable and good government for the people of Israel,” Herzog stressed.
The bloc led by Netanyahu won 53 seats in the 120-member house in the October 27 polls. The anti-Netanyahu bloc, also being described as the ‘change bloc’ got 48 with the remaining 19 going to the Arab parties in a fractured mandate.
United Torah Judaism, a party in the Netanyahu bloc, decided not to recommend him, bringing the number of recommendations for the incumbent Prime Minister to 46. The Arab parties, on the other hand, grudgingly recommended Eisenkot, declaring their intent to oust Netanyahu.
However, both blocs have shown a general aversion towards aligning with the Arab parties and most of the parties in both blocs, except the Democrats, have shown an aversion to sitting with the Arab parties in a government.
The sticking point in bringing the Arab parties into a governing coalition revolves around their reluctance to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation, something unacceptable to the majority of the Jewish population following the deadly attacks of October 7, 2023.
Earlier during the day, Ra’am party leader Mansour Abbas, after recommending Eisenkot, reiterated his support for a two-state solution and US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, including calling for “Hamas and all the military or armed organisations to be disarmed,” but fell short of calling Hamas a terrorist organisation. PTI HM APL
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(This story is published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. No editing has been done in the headline or the body by ABP Live.)
