Israel's Opposition Meets in Herzliya to Back Eisenkot as Likud Weighs Voting Against Certifying the Result

The harder question is the Arab lists. Golan's Democrats want a partnership with them; Lieberman is firmly against; Yashar appears to have ruled it out without saying so. Joint List leader Yousef Jabareen said on Monday that Netanyahu cannot be replaced without coordination with his party and was due to meet Golan today. On paper the opposition and the Arab parties hold 67 seats; in practice nobody has agreed to anything.

Why did Likud try to delay certification?

Likud's lawyer and committee member Ilan Bombach asked Justice Noam Sohlberg, who chairs the committee, for an urgent meeting over what he called serious suspicions of foreign interference, a reference to an unfinished Shin Bet and Mossad inquiry into whether Qatar or others funded efforts to raise Arab turnout. Sohlberg wrote back that the committee has no authority to withhold certification and that delaying publication would extend the outgoing Knesset's term against fundamental democratic principles, the Times of Israel reported. The committee had already said on Sunday that the allegations, even if proven, would not change the outcome.

The plenum vote on Wednesday is normally a formality. Haaretz reported overnight that Likud is weighing voting against certification, that Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit says it will vote no, and that such a move would be unprecedented and likely to be overturned by the courts. Eisenkot accused Netanyahu and Likud of a "destructive and violent campaign of delegitimization" and called it a direct attack on Israeli democracy; Lapid said the opposition would not let it happen.

What happens when Herzog starts consultations on Wednesday?

President Isaac Herzog begins hearing the parties on Wednesday, breaking custom by taking the smallest first: Religious Zionism-Zehut, then Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu, with Yashar and Likud last on Thursday, and a further round under consideration. He has until 11 November to name a candidate, who then gets 28 days, extendable by 14, to build a coalition. If that fails a second candidate gets 28 days, and if that fails 61 members can ask for a third, after which the Knesset dissolves and Israel votes again.

Netanyahu's far-right partners and Shas are expected to recommend him; the second ultra-Orthodox party, United Torah Judaism, has not said. If the Arab lists recommend Eisenkot he would have 67 recommendations to Netanyahu's 53, which is why today's meeting in Herzliya, and the question of whether the bloc will take that support, matters more than any statement either side has made since the polls closed.