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Arab-led parties back Eisenkot as Herzog prepares to name Israel's next premier-designate

6 November 2026 · Algeria Now

Israel's President, Isaac Herzog, will name on Sunday the lawmaker tasked with forming the next government, after two Arab-led parties joined the opposition in recommending Gadi Eisenkot and gave him a clear lead over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The 27 October election left neither bloc with a majority.

Herzog said that 67 members of the 120-seat Knesset recommended Eisenkot, against 46 for Netanyahu, with seven abstaining. The Joint List, which holds 11 seats, and the United Arab List, known as Ra'am, with eight, supported Eisenkot. Degel HaTorah, which holds four of the seven seats of the United Torah Judaism alliance, recommended neither man after breaking with Netanyahu over the failure to pass a law exempting ultra-Orthodox men from military service.

A contested count

The election gave Netanyahu's Likud and its allies 53 seats, Eisenkot's party and three other Jewish opposition parties 48, and Arab-majority lists a record 19. Netanyahu has claimed, without presenting evidence, that foreign states financed Arab parties to influence the vote. Israel's Central Elections Committee certified the results on Wednesday and found no evidence of fraud. Herzog accepted the results, backed an inquiry into any suspected interference, and warned against smearing Palestinian citizens of Israel, about a fifth of the population.

The nominee will have 28 days to form a government, with a possible 14-day extension. If neither man succeeds, Israelis would vote again early next year. Eisenkot does not want the Arab parties as coalition partners, so analysts expect him to need at least an abstention deal with them to reach 61 votes.

Why it matters to Algeria

Algeria's position is long-standing and consistent. It supports an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, a goal it helped place on the international agenda when the Palestinian National Council proclaimed the State of Palestine in Algiers on 15 November 1988. It also points to the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion of 19 July 2024, which found Israel's continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful and called for it to end.

Israel's government contests that reading and says its security measures respond to attacks on its citizens. The recommendations and coalition arithmetic reveal nothing yet about policy on the truce in Gaza, settlement expansion or the two-state framework, which are the questions that matter to Palestinians and to Algiers.

What comes next

Herzog's decision on Sunday opens a four-week race. Whoever is chosen must assemble a majority from blocs that disagree on almost everything.

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Arab-led parties back Eisenkot as Herzog prepares to name Israel's next premier-designate

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