-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.

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[–] 17 points 2 days ago (13 children)

With who? They've sworn not to work with the Arab parties, and they're in opposition to Netanyahu's coalition. Which parties could actually join them to form a government?

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (10 children)

    Pure guessing here - but I think it takes a majority of the parliament to decide to dissolve?

    So even if Eisenkot doesn't create a coalition with the Palestinian parties (using "Arab" is Israel's way of denying Palestinian identity), my guess is that the Palestinian parties would still vote against dissolving parliament, and Eisenkot can carry on.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago

    You need to have a government to dissolve it. Usually in a parliamentary system, if there is a failure to form a government, there's another election (and part of the existing government continues as a caretaker government to perform essential duties).

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (7 children)

    I'd be careful referring to the Arab parties as Palestinian. You're assumption is correct, but backwards. Bibi uses that term to disenfranchise them, saying "they don't believe in Israel, so they shouldn't count". Most of the Arab parties get a lot of support from non-Palestinian Arab Israelis. Eroding that identity is a great way to silence their votes, especially at a time when they could make the difference between continued genocide and progress towards coexistence. Netanhayu would like nothing more than to convince the world that the Arab parties are "just Palestinian". Of note is that Ra'am doesn't even support the dissolution of the state of Israel, but instead formalization of a two-state solution.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    My understanding is that what constitutes "Arab" in Israel are Palestinians (of varying beliefs i.e. Christian, Druze, Muslim) and Armenians. There might be some Lebanese that live in northern Israel but they try not to identify as Arab. Maybe I'm wrong though?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago* (1 child)

    Armenians? That's bizarre.

    The only Lebanese who don't identify as Arabs are the Maronites, despite their speaking Arabic, eating the same food as everyone else in Lebanon, and having few other cultural signifiers that differ. That's a legacy of the times when they were given a privileged position over other Lebanese by the French. I find it highly improbable that there are many of those who are Israeli citizens.

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  • [–] 1 point 18 hours ago*

    The Lebanese identifying as non-Arab is not too dissimilar from the founding myth of Israel. It was an idea that the French historians espoused to give Lebanese a founding identity that would allow the French empire to maintain a loyal foothold on the Eastern Mediterranean. Same with the British and Israel.

    Armenians? That's bizarre.

    That Israelis label them as Arab? Israel is an ethno-supremacist apartheid state. Clumping up minorities is part and parcel.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

    Another group are the sizeable group of Arab Muslims that identify as Israeli rather than Palestinian.

    They might do so publicly, in order to avoid persecution, but that should be taken with appropriate skepticism. My wife's Palestinian, and in her lifetime, she has known only a very small number of Palestinians with Israeli passports who privately identify as anything but Palestinian. That divide-and-rule tactic by the Israelis has not worked.

    And for the Druze, their belief system requires them to comply with whoever happens to be in charge. That's the result of their having a long history of persecution in places they live. So they keep their heads down : better second-class citizens than dead.

    And how many of the Arabic Jews vote for the "Arab" parties? Any?

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  • [–] 1 point 21 hours ago

    I was more focusing on what "Arab" means to Israel and that the use of the terminology by Israel is to delete Palestinian identity.

    And Israelis definitely don't consider Mizrahi Jews as Arabs, or that Mizrahis consider themselves as Arab. If anything, the most right-wing in Israel have been Mizrahim (Ben Gvir). They definitely didn't vote for Raam.

    While there may have been non-Palestinians to vote for Palestinian parties, it doesn't stop the parties from being representative of the Palestinian demographic and therefore a "Palestinian party" versus a generalized "Arab party'.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago

    I think it takes a majority of the parliament to decide to dissolve?

    I thought the President could dissolve, based on nobody being able to construct a majority coalition in a given time period. That's how most parliamentary systems work.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago

    Eisenkot had a big role in the war crime of attacking civilian infrastructure in order to terrorize the Lebanese into compliance. He's almost as much of a fascistic ethno-nationalist as Netanyahu.

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  • [–] 2 points 17 hours ago

    Eisenkot? If one literally translates his name to German, he'd be called iron feces. Hilarious.

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  • [+] -12 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    "try to form government" is like euphemism for coup d'état.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago

    What do you mean by that? This sounds like a by-the-books procedural step

    "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.

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  • 4 comments in c/news@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 2 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    How exactly does Israel's govt work? I though Net&Yahoo was in charge 🤔

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    They just had an election and his party failed to make a majority. He lost

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    I gathered that. But what's the difference between the president and prime minister?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago

    The President is an apolitical ceremonial role whose entire Job is to oversee the government processes and facilitate elections and such. The prime minister is the actual head of state. After an election when a new parliament forms the president selects the legislator they think has the highest chance of forming a majority coalition to back them. This is the “forming a government phase”. Since Isreal is a multiparty system nonparty will have majority power so the legislator trying to form a government will have to make concessions on various agenda items to get enough other parties to back them to form a majority coalition. If they fail to do so within the time limit the president will pick someone else.

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  • 2 comments in c/world view that post
    [–] 4 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    So he's not too busy to go to jail now?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago

    man wouldn't it be great if putin, trump and bibi ended up on the same cell block?

    I'd fucking pay to watch that show. I'd pay for trump to have radical life extension medical treatments just for it to go on.

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