Netanyahu Fights to Keep Haredi Parties From Eisenkot Coalition but Lacks a Majority of His Own

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is working to persuade Israel's haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, parties not to join a government led by Gadi Eisenkot. Yet even if that effort succeeds, it remains unclear how Netanyahu could assemble an alternative coalition, since keeping the haredi parties out of a rival government does not by itself deliver him a parliamentary majority.

Netanyahu's main option is a unity government, but there is currently no indication that Eisenkot is willing to consider one. Beyond the publicly stated position of the Yashar party chairman, who has pledged not to serve in a government with Netanyahu, both men want to serve as prime minister. The question of a possible rotation agreement further complicates any understanding between them, even at a later stage.

According to haredi sources, discussions are taking place within the ultra-Orthodox political establishment about potentially pressuring both Netanyahu and Eisenkot to pursue a unity government. From the haredi parties' perspective, such an arrangement could provide a framework for resolving the military conscription and budgetary disputes while sparing the country another election.

The alternative, another round of elections, is a prospect the haredi parties fear would carry a high cost: additional months without a resolution to the legal status of yeshiva students, no budgetary solution, and a continuing crisis over enforcement and arrests. Even the possibility of increasing their representation in the next Knesset would not resolve their immediate difficulties.

Draft enforcement remains central to the negotiations. Senior figures in the right-wing bloc claim the IDF has recently reduced the number of arrests of haredi draft evaders to avoid undermining Eisenkot's effort to form a government. "The IDF has now lowered the profile of arrests of draft evaders and is carrying out fewer of them so as not to sabotage Eisenkot's effort to establish a government," the sources claimed.

Negotiations within the bloc seeking a change of government also remain far from a breakthrough. United Torah Judaism is reluctant to join an Eisenkot-led government on its own, without Shas, while Shas chairman Arye Deri has yet to decide whether his party will take part in the move.

Eisenkot and his associates are seeking to move forward initially with UTJ, against the backdrop of a possible abstention by Ra'am in the vote to approve the formation of the government, and to bring Shas into the coalition at a later stage. Avigdor Liberman would prefer Shas to be part of the arrangement from the outset.

Within UTJ, there are concerns that even if agreements are reached at the start of the coalition's term, its secular and liberal partners could later advance policies that contradict haredi demands. As the government's sole haredi partner, the party's ability to compel its coalition partners to honor commitments on the conscription law or on religion and state legislation would be limited, which is why UTJ places considerable importance on Shas joining as a counterweight.

For now, the delay is working in Netanyahu's favor, since every day that UTJ and Shas refrain from committing makes it harder for Eisenkot to advance the formation of a government. But the time Netanyahu is gaining does nothing to resolve his own fundamental difficulty: assembling a parliamentary majority and forming an alternative government.