Benjamin Netnayhu and Gadi Eisenkot. (Chaim Goldberg/Tsafrir Abayov/FLASH90)
It’s Tuesday, September 15, and “These are the most fateful elections in the history of the state,” scream the street signs, the online banners, the radio guests, the TV anchors. I have just one question: how can an election be decisive if, by every poll, it will produce no decision?
According to the most recent set of polls, Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition ranges from 50-52 seats, while Gadi Eisenkot’s holds a commanding lead with 52-54.
When Yitzchak Rabin beat Yitzhak Shamir in 1992 by the edge of a single mandate, the consequences were fateful. When Netanyahu overcame Peres in 1996 by less than a percentage point, the country changed course. But if the trend in the polls holds and the change bloc drifts away from 61, the only option will be forming a rickety government while breaking a tidy stack of core campaign promises. A decision is reached when a determined bloc wins a majority and hardens into a camp that lasts for years. When an eclectic assortment of parties links up for a single vote in the Knesset, that isn’t called a decision—maybe a temporary stitch-up. Anyone who doubts it is welcome to recall the adventure of Bennett’s change government: how it began and how it ended.
The significant development as the party lists closed, then, is the merger of Chili Tropper’s party into Eisenkot’s list. It was an intra-bloc auction between Yashar! and Yachad, but with major implications for the day after the election. Members of “Zionist Home” had, after all, pledged in the past that they would not lend a hand to a minority government, even one sworn in on the abstention of the Arab parties.
Eisenkot’s framework recalls, a little, what is known in Jewish law as the prohibition on “telling a gentile.” You’re in a hotel in Rome on Shabbat, dying of heat, and there’s an Italian next to you. You’re forbidden to tell him “turn on the AC,” because that’s a desecration of Shabbat. What you can say is: “It’s hot as hell in here,” hoping he’ll take the hint himself. That’s basically Eisenkot’s framework: we won’t negotiate with Mansour Abbas and Ahmed Tibi and demand “vote for us”; we’ll just say “if Bibi doesn’t fall, that’s on you.”
Only after the election will we know whether spelling the plan out in public was courage or foolishness. But the logic behind it is to give voters hope for an upset—enough to bridge the hard weeks in the polls, and the past week was certainly one of those.
The merger talks centered on this gap between the two men. Tropper himself, after all, was one of those who scuttled the formation of a similar government under Benny Gantz in 2020. It’s clear to anyone with sense what his history means for the chances of forming such a government—as does the fact that he brings with him Elisaf Peretz and Shira Shapira, a bereaved brother and a bereaved mother of people murdered by the organization that not one of the Arab MKs is willing to call by the name it deserves: “terrorist organization.”
It seems the zone of agreement rested on a twofold understanding. One: Eisenkot will make almost any effort to broaden the government. Not Netanyahu first, but maybe second. Not the Likud, then maybe Ofir Winter, or Bezalel Smotrich—whatever will widen the government’s base. And if not, the intention will be to swear in a minority government, but not as a long-term project—rather for a short spell, until either the coalition is broadened or the election comes. The public justification will be that if we’re heading back to the ballot box anyway, the only question is whether that happens under a Netanyahu minority government or an Eisenkot one.
The main problem with the scenario is the partners. Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett have already made clear they’ll refuse to join such a move. True, they did exactly that in 2021 and then formed a coalition with Ra’am. But this time there’s also a political interest. Why would Lieberman agree to take all the fire for breaking his promises in order to crown—at his not-young age—Eisenkot, a newcomer barely off the boat? Same goes for Bennett. The aversion will grow all the stronger if it’s clear this is a temporary move whose whole purpose is to pry Netanyahu loose from the title “prime minister.” Beyond the question of whether the damage from such an alliance might simply hand Netanyahu the next election, will they let Eisenkot run a campaign out of the Prime Minister’s Office and steal their thunder and leave them for dead? As we know, Tropper donated a kidney; they don’t intend to donate their bodies to science.
The lesson of the Bennett-and-the-six-mandates affair hasn’t been fully absorbed. He became prime minister not because of poker skills—which he certainly has—but as payment for breaking his promise. His other partners were committed to replacing Netanyahu; he was not. This time it’s Lieberman, who declares he won’t agree to form a minority coalition like that. If there aren’t 61 mandates, will Eisenkot’s framework, at best, end up building the Lieberman government?
Mossad chief David Barnea attends a Conference of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), in Tel Aviv. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
A very senior Israeli figure, now in civilian life, sat this week on the stage of the MEAD conference in Washington and recounted how, once again, the entire Iranian leadership was wiped out. A gathering of officers was set to convene on Saturday at 9:30 a.m., and then came word of a gathering of the intelligence ministry at 8:30. The problem this created was that they had to strike both at once to preserve the element of surprise — and the further problem was that the ministry meeting was slated to run one hour, meaning it would end exactly as the second meeting began. Someone came with a piece of advice: strike at 9:40, because intelligence officers everywhere always love to run long. His advice was taken, the officers ran long, and were blown sky-high in the middle of the briefing.
Conclusion: running long is not advisable. In short: in September 2024 the conference, with figures from the Gulf, the Middle East, and the US, dealt mainly with Israel’s difficulty subduing the arms of the Iranian axis. Sinwar was holding the hostages, Nasrallah didn’t know what was coming a week later, and no one talked about Iran itself. In September 2025, mid-conference, Israel tried to eliminate the Hamas leadership in Doha; the prevailing view was that someone needed to rein Israel in.
This year the conference was defined by the coalition against Iran. No disputes remained about the need to deal with it, or about subduing the regime of the ayatollahs as the single most important matter in the Middle East. The main conclusion is that the Islamic Republic is in far worse shape than it appeared when the memorandum of understanding was signed, but that its story will keep unfolding for a long while yet. Former Mossad chief Dedi Barnea estimated last year that effective sanctions would bring the Iranian regime down within a year. After roughly half a year of an American siege on Hormuz, the assessment inside the Mossad is that if the US doesn’t tire or break, the first quarter of 2027 will see Iran fall. “It’ll be a new Middle East,” a senior American promised.
Until a few months ago the consensus was that Iran had come out of the war with the upper hand, in light of what looked like a shameful capitulation by Trump and the abandonment of all the war’s aims. Almost no one still thinks so. “The supreme leader didn’t come to his own father’s funeral, his brother had to wear a mask — is that what the winner looks like?” wondered a senior White House official. It wasn’t said outright, but the assumption is that the pressure won’t ease — it will only intensify after the elections in Israel and the United States. If the Republican Party wins, Trump will feel freer than ever. If not, history teaches that presidents who’ve lost their grip on Capitol Hill and on domestic affairs tend to turn to foreign ones. Unshackled, with no more elections left in his political life, Trump could descend on Iran in a fury of wrath. What Netanyahu will be able to do, assuming he’s in a caretaker government, is a little less clear.
The Americans have other matters on their plate. A senior figure from the worlds of politics and technology warned at the conference that the whole world “is now digging its own grave through a misunderstanding of AI. In 20 years humanity could be wiped out by the combination of quantum computers.” He added that the only chance of survival is if the quantum computers conclude that they still need humans to supply them with electricity. If we’re going to be wiped out within 20 years anyway, then suddenly rebuilding Gaza and eliminating the Iranian nuclear program seem a touch less urgent.
This is an excerpt from my weekly column in Israel Hayom
English Editor: Ari Tatarka
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https://www.ynetnews.com/article/skekj00wtgx
For anyone seeking a non fantasy account of what was actually said at the MEAD conference please check out the link.