JERUSALEM (The Thursday Times) — Gadi Eisenkot, who has the backing of 67 of the 120 members of Israel’s next Knesset to form a government, said on Friday he is working to set up a “national emergency government” as quickly as possible, warning that Israel faces a “real, tangible and dangerous” emergency.
In a statement posted in Hebrew before the start of Shabbat, the former army chief said the current government threatened “the existence of Israeli democracy” at its most basic level, while the country’s war fronts remained open and subject to “political and personal whims”. Israel was already “in the midst of a dangerous diplomatic tsunami”, he said.
Eisenkot said he hoped President Isaac Herzog would give him the mandate to form a government at the start of next week. His plan is to swear in a government as fast as possible, built on the four Zionist parties of the bloc seeking change, and then to bring in any party or lawmaker who accepts four principles, “immediately or gradually”.
His four principles: recognition of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state; acceptance of the values of its Declaration of Independence; a duty of service for all, whether military, national or civilian, to strengthen the army and enlarge its ranks; and recognition of Hamas as a terrorist organisation, with a commitment to dismantle its military and governing power.
The third principle puts him at odds with United Torah Judaism, whose seven lawmakers recommended no one in this week’s consultations and say their support for any government depends on preserving military service exemptions for yeshiva students.
Eisenkot said the consultations at the President’s Residence had shown “a clear picture”: only 46 lawmakers back Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu staying in office, and 74 did not express confidence in him. A caretaker prime minister “in the minority” continuing to run the security services and law enforcement was “a dangerous situation that must not continue for even one day”, he said, adding that a new government was needed to avoid another election and to stop Netanyahu “entrenching himself” in the prime minister’s office.
He said his team had held dozens of hours of negotiations, some of them in the past few hours, and had made “significant progress” and “breakthroughs”, quietly rather than through media briefings. Anyone who tries to torpedo the new government for personal reasons “will be remembered in history” as having failed to rise to the moment, he warned. “It will not be forgiven.”
