-Former military chief has a few pathways to power
-Eisenkot has 28 days to try to form government with potential for 14-day extension
-He is son of Moroccan immigrants
Nov 7 (Reuters) - Israel's president on Saturday chose Gadi Eisenkot, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's strongest rival, to try to form a new government following a deadlocked election that left neither man with a clear path to power.
Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving leader, is fighting to stay in office after his religious-nationalist coalition lost its majority in an October 27 election but still emerged as the largest bloc in parliament.
Eisenkot, a former military chief, has declined to join forces with Arab parties, with whose support he would have a majority of seats in parliament. But Arab leaders, incensed by what they view as the racist policies of Netanyahu and his far-right allies, still nominated Eisenkot to try to form a government first — giving him the most endorsements.
"President Herzog has invited Gadi Eisenkot to the President’s Residence, where he will be tasked with forming the government tomorrow," said the spokesperson of President Isaac Herzog, whose largely ceremonial role involves nominating a candidate to form a coalition after elections.
Yeah, that's mostly what the population was before the formation of the modern state. Now there are a few other key groups. One massive one is the ~40% of the Israeli population that are Jewish Arabs (who Israel classifies as non-Arab, despite being clearly an Arabic people [many speak Arabic as native language, and most are from MENA]). Another group are the sizeable group of Arab Muslims that identify as Israeli rather than Palestinian. Then of course there are the Christian/Druze/Bedouin groups that identify with the varying states to varying degrees. The thing that makes it tough as that both states (whether legitimate or not, I think its fair to say that both Israel and Palestine are de facto states) refuse to release demographics for people who would identify as a certain ethnicity and a certain nationality (Israel treats all Jews as a single ethnic block, Palestine doesn't count [most] Jews as citizens, both groups are sizeable). Part of the confusion does come from the fact that the Palestinian government (in the West Bank, not Hamas, they're stricter) claims that any non-Jew living in Israel is actually a Palestinian; but that simply is not the case (any more than every Han person in Taiwan being part of the PRC).
In the recent election, Ra'am got a lot of votes from Arabic Jews who would certainly disagree with the idea of being Palestinian. The Joint List has a more Palestinian core voter base, but still attracts support from non-Palestinian groups. Netanyahu would love if everyone would spread the idea that both groups are Palestinians and thus don't have "skin in the game" when it comes to Israeli politics. Thus his constant rhetoric these days that they are.