Netanyahu warns Arab-backed coalition would 'dismantle' Israel

With Israel's president set to hand out the mandate to form a government, Benjamin Netanyahu went on the attack. In a pre-recorded address on Nov 7, the prime minister warned that any coalition built with Arab parties would tear the country apart from the inside. He pointed to Europe as a cautionary tale, saying a government propped up by Islamists would do damage there and worse at home.

The timing is no accident. President Isaac Herzog is expected to announce on Nov 8 which candidate gets first crack at assembling a majority after the Oct 27 election, and Netanyahu's rivals are sounding increasingly confident they can end his run as Israel's longest-serving prime minister.

The math is leaning against him. After consulting every party on Nov 5, Herzog conceded it would be only logical to tap Gadi Eisenkot — a former military chief turned political newcomer — who has been recommended by factions holding 67 seats, against 46 for Netanyahu's bloc. Neither side cleared a majority in the deeply polarised vote, worn down by three years of war.

What makes Eisenkot's path possible is a partnership that would have been unthinkable not long ago. The opposition leader, who has courted secular and liberal Israelis, has left the door open to ultra-Orthodox parties. His potential bloc could also take in Raam, the moderate Islamist party whose leader has recognised Israel as a Jewish state, with outside backing from the Arab-majority Joint List.

Netanyahu isn't giving up on an alternative. He repeated his call for a national unity government spanning every party in the national camp and all Zionist parties willing to protect what he called the one and only state of the Jewish people. Notably, he stopped short of insisting he should be the one to lead it — a claim he had made in a previous speech. Herzog has likewise signalled he wants to explore a unity arrangement bridging both Jewish Israeli camps.

Eisenkot's Yashar party fired back on X, according to AFP. If Likud and its allies have suddenly discovered an appetite for unity and a broad government, Yashar said, they are welcome to publicly break with the extremists and declare their willingness to serve under Prime Minister Eisenkot.