Photo: Clema12 / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0
JERUSALEM, Israel – Gadi Eisenkot and Avigdor Liberman have reportedly reached agreements that go beyond the Knesset speakership, with talks and understandings extending to committee chairmanships and ministerial positions in a future government. They have also agreed that the next speaker will come from Eisenkot’s Yashar party, with Elazar Stern, Matan Kahana and Eisenkot himself named as the possibilities. The two agreed to withhold the chosen name until Naftali Bennett and Yair Golan, who lead the other parties in the bloc, give formal approval. Which parties will join the main coalition is still unresolved. No vote has been held, no speaker has been installed, and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana has not been removed. The reported understandings do not mean any party controls any office.
The agreement followed a Monday meeting between Eisenkot, who received the mandate from President Isaac Herzog on Sunday to form a government, and Liberman, who leads Yisrael Beiteinu. In a joint statement they called the talks “substantive and productive” and expressed “full confidence in their ability to establish a stable government for four years.” Eisenkot is expected to meet Golan next to advance coalition negotiations. If Eisenkot took the speaker’s chair himself, it would not be unprecedented: Benny Gantz served as speaker in 2020 for under two months while negotiating a government.
The development follows our earlier report that Eisenkot’s Yashar party asked Shas and United Torah Judaism to back a formal request to replace Ohana when the 26th Knesset opens Tuesday. Ohana has said that if at least 61 MKs formally request an early vote, he will schedule one within a week.
Why it matters: control of the speaker’s chair decides when a new government can be sworn in, because Ohana could delay the ceremony by up to seven days after a coalition is submitted to the president. Still unknown: who the nominee is, whether Bennett and Golan approve, and which parties join the coalition.
Archival photo: the Knesset building in Jerusalem in 2022.
JBizNews Desk | Jerusalem, Israel
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