Israel's coalition game: Netanyahu, Eisenkot play political bluff - who will blink first?

ByHERB KEINONNOVEMBER 13, 2026 13:42

Welcome to Israel’s Rip Van Winkle season. Also known as coalition negotiations.

You could go to sleep now and wake up when there’s a government and miss remarkably little. You’d sleep through the leaks, the trial balloons, the rumors of imminent breakthroughs, and the categorical denials of things that turn out to have been true on Monday and irrelevant by Thursday.

This is the season when it’s hard to tell what’s real, what’s posturing, and what’s simply wishful thinking.

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls for a “unity” government, does he mean it, or is he trying to make Yashar head Gadi Eisenkot look like the one standing in the way?

If he means it, why use the reception after the Knesset swearing-in, a rare moment of national grace, to launch a broadside against Ra’am and the Joint List? He called for unity in the same speech in which he accused both parties of wanting to destroy the Jewish state, an accusation bound to rankle some of the very people in the change bloc he wants to bring into a unity government.

By that evening, predictably, Eisenkot’s party had called off its scheduled talks with the Likud, citing the speech.

Why not use the occasion to extend an olive branch to those he would like to form a unity government with?

When Eisenkot writes to Netanyahu urging him to exercise restraint and leave potentially dangerous military decisions to the next government, does he genuinely fear that Netanyahu might take Israel to war for political reasons? Or is he trying to put Netanyahu on the defensive by casting him as a man who can’t be trusted with those decisions?

There’s a danger in warning too often that the sky is about to fall.

Before the election, Netanyahu’s opponents warned that he might use a war as a pretext to cancel the elections or launch a war to sway the results. After the election came warnings of a January 6-style attempt to disrupt the Knesset’s swearing-in. The election went ahead as planned, Netanyahu did not attack Iran, and the Knesset was sworn in without incident.

The more often people hear warnings that the worst is about to happen, the harder it is to get them to listen the next time.

So when Eisenkot expressed “grave concern,” was he sounding an alarm or pressing a political point?

Is Liberman really ready to compromise on the draft? 

And then there is Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman. When Liberman – he of the proposal to deny the vote to those who don’t serve in the IDF, he of the political persona carefully built around taking on the haredi parties, he of the slogan “100% to those who serve and zero to those who don’t” – says he’s willing to compromise on haredi conscription, is it real or part of a longer game aimed at preserving his options?

Has Liberman really become Mr. Compromise? Or is he trying to get into the good graces of the haredi parties, in case neither Eisenkot nor Netanyahu can form a government, and 61 MKs, in a last-ditch effort to avoid another election, ask President Isaac Herzog to give Liberman a shot at forming one?

And then, of course, there is United Torah Judaism’s Yakov Asher. His party declined to recommend anyone to Herzog, and Asher has been flirting publicly with Liberman. Is he really considering joining an Eisenkot-led government, or is he just trying to maximize leverage to get a better deal out of Netanyahu?

Who means what? Who’s putting on a show? Who is fooling whom? It’s Rip fVan Winkle season.

Netanyahu and Eisenkot reopen a security channel

Then came Thursday morning. Liberman joined Eisenkot in warning against military decisions that could drag Israel into war at this fragile political moment. Liberman, now temporary chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, called for parliamentary oversight and the approval of the entire security establishment for any military engagement.

By noon, Netanyahu and Eisenkot had issued a joint statement announcing a diplomatic and security update at the Prime Minister’s Office, with Netanyahu’s military secretary, Maj.-Gen. Guy Markizano, taking part.

Two days after Eisenkot’s party called off its talks with the Likud, the two men were at least willing to put their names on the same piece of paper. It was just a small joint announcement about security consultations, not, on its face, a breakthrough. But after Eisenkot accused Netanyahu of freezing him out of security briefings, the fact that one was now taking place, with both leaders’ names attached, at least signaled that the channels had reopened.

Whether this is anything more than crisis management is unclear. It is, however, a modest reopening of communication, and in coalition negotiations, even that can matter. This does not mean unity is near; it does mean the parties have not yet entirely closed the door on it.

If the coalition talks were a reality show, it could be aptly titled “Who Do You Dislike the Least?” Because that, in this first week of coalition talks, is what is at the heart of the matter.

Each of the change bloc parties said before the election who they would not be willing to sit with: Netanyahu, the Arab parties, or the haredi parties. Now they have to decide which of the three they can live with – in other words, who they dislike the least and are willing, after all, to join together in a coalition.

What would a Netanyahu-Eisenkot unity government take?

But before the change bloc – or parts of it – has to decide whether it can live with Netanyahu, it needs to know what he’s asking them to live with. He says he wants unity. Does that include a prime ministerial rotation, a word he has not yet uttered publicly? Would he let Eisenkot go first?

Netanyahu can call for unity every night of the week, but it means nothing unless he indicates what he’s willing to give up. The moment Netanyahu says he’s prepared to spend part of the term out of the prime minister’s chair, he has put something on the table that Eisenkot can actually negotiate over. Even if he insists on going first, saying when he would hand over the job would tell us considerably more than another speech about the pressing need to come together.

And whom would Netanyahu bring with him? Eisenkot would need to know whether he was negotiating with the Likud or with Netanyahu’s entire bloc, including Otzma Yehudit and the Religious Zionist Party. There’s a world of difference between asking Eisenkot to join a coalition with the Likud and asking him to join a coalition that includes Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

The answer would show how much Netanyahu is willing to give up of his current political alliance for the sake of unity.

Eisenkot has a test of his own. Canceling talks with the Likud after Netanyahu’s broadside was easy to explain. But suppose Netanyahu offered a rotation. Would Eisenkot go back to the table?

And if Netanyahu went so far as to offer Eisenkot the first turn as prime minister, would he agree to govern with him? In this round of “Who Do You Dislike the Least?” many of Eisenkot’s voters have already made clear that the man they dislike most is Netanyahu. Would Eisenkot be willing to buck them?

Liberman says he’s ready to compromise on the draft with the haredi parties to form a government – meaning that, in our reality show, he dislikes the haredi parties the least. But how far is he willing to go?

The first bills filed in the new Knesset on Wednesday give some idea of the road Liberman would have to travel.

Naftali Bennett, whose B’Yachad party campaigned relentlessly on the issue of haredi conscription, filed a bill to expand benefits for reservists and discharged soldiers, paying for them by cutting support to households that neither serve nor participate in the workforce.

United Torah Judaism, however, is moving in the opposite direction. A bill put forward by Meir Porush would let yeshiva students defer service every year until age 26, when they would be exempt. Another bill by Porush and Elyakim Stark would freeze arrests, investigations, and criminal enforcement for draft evasion while legislation on yeshiva students’ status is pending.

These may be opening bids, but look at what each side is asking the state to do. Bennett wants it to shift money toward those who serve. UTJ wants it to protect yeshiva students who stay out of the army. Eisenkot has made service for all a condition for joining his government. If he needs UTJ’s votes to form one, how much of that promise can he keep?

As temporary chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Liberman – who said he is now willing to compromise on this issue – can put his compromise into a bill. How many recruits would he insist on, and by when? What would happen if the targets were missed, and what sanctions would be taken against those who don’t follow the new arrangements?

Then other questions arise: Would Bennett accept years of draft deferrals for haredim to get a change bloc government formed? Would Asher ask his own party to accept sanctions for missing recruitment targets?

Netanyahu can talk about unity without saying when he’d hand over the premiership. Eisenkot can demand that Netanyahu make a serious offer without saying whether he’d govern with him if he did. Liberman can talk about compromise without saying whom he’d exempt. Bennett can champion those who serve without saying whether he’d walk away from a coalition deal over exemptions for those who don’t. Asher can flirt with the change bloc without telling his own voters what he’d concede to join it.

You can sleep through all of that. When to wake up? When they start getting specific enough to anger their own voters.

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