Billboards featuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party (left) and former Israeli military chief Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party (right), at the entrance to Kiryat Malachi, Israel, Oct. 20, 2026. The writing on Netanyahu’s billboard reads “right or Palestine.” The writing on Eisenkot’s billboard reads “for the IDF! This time, Eisenkot.” Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Gadi Eisenkot, the former IDF chief who leads the Yashar party, is expected to get the first try at forming Israel’s next government — on the recommendation of parties that won’t sit with each other.

The results are official now. Justice Noam Sohlberg, who chairs the Central Elections Committee, handed them to President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday: 5,717,397 votes, turnout just under 78 percent, and the 53, 48, and 19 seat breakdown that I gave you here last Friday.

About 250 government lawyers had spent six working days on the records of 9,069 polling stations, against 5,100 last time, and went deeper at 350 of them. They found nothing that changed the result.

Likud and Shas abstained on approving it — with Likud saying 1,281 complaints have gone unanswered. They are preparing a possible appeal which would land around Nov. 18.

Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party told Herzog on Thursday that the election was stolen anyway. “You are citing hearsay; it is all speculation,” Herzog answered. The Shin Bet is still running down suspected foreign money, and if it’s there, that is a security case worth resolution. That said, none of it moves a single seat before the Knesset is sworn in on Tuesday.

Herzog, for his part, has spent two days asking each party whom it wants (on live television — and you thought American Idol could be tough).

Last week, I wrote here that Netanyahu’s only 61 ran through Ra’am. Ra’am answered on Wednesday and went with Eisenkot. On Thursday, one of its MKs, Walid al-Hawashla, told Herzog: “Netanyahu turns to us to vote with him on the State Comptroller, but when I want to be part of the coalition, I’m a terror supporter?”

United Torah Judaism went in first on Thursday and couldn’t manage to recommend anyone at all. Its message was centered on the draft. “Torah learners are persecuted; they are considered criminals,” Yitzhak Goldknopf, who leads its Agudat Yisrael faction, told Herzog.

That leaves Netanyahu with 46. Likud’s 27 combined with Otzma’s seven, Religious Zionism’s six, and Shas’ six.

Eisenkot has his four parties’ 48, Ra’am’s eight for 56, and 67 if the Joint List’s 11 name him, which they hadn’t when I wrote this.

Gilad Kariv of the Democrats told Herzog it’s “a clear decision of 67 seats against the continuation” of Netanyahu’s rule, and then, because he can count too, that it’ll be “difficult to translate it into governing reality.”

Avigdor Liberman is why. His seven Yisrael Beytenu seats are inside Eisenkot’s 48, and he still won’t rely on the Arab parties or the Haredi parties, sit with Netanyahu, or go back to the polls. On a minority government he said on Monday, “It won’t happen.” Herzog put it to his people on Wednesday: “If you won’t sit with this one or that one or the other one — where does it lead?” Oded Forer, who led the delegation, thought there might be “elements within Likud.” Maybe somebody in Likud walks out, though thus far no one has.

Eisenkot has a test of his own for anyone joining him, which is calling Hamas a terrorist organization, which should be easy enough. Mansour Abbas, Ra’am’s leader, went in on Thursday, backed Trump’s Gaza plan, and called for Hamas to be disarmed. Fine. But, when they were asked the question, they wouldn’t say Hamas was a terrorist organization. “Leave me this space to be a bridge,” he said. “Leave me a space to protect myself and my family as well.” He may well have reason to be afraid. He still didn’t say it, and his eight seats are what take Eisenkot to 56.

As we’ve discussed, a new Israeli government doesn’t actually need 61. It needs more yes votes than no, which is how Naftali Bennett got into office in 2021. Ynet reported on Sunday that Eisenkot had his people look at a 49-46 version: his 48, plus Yoav Segalovitz, Ra’am’s Jewish No. 2 and a former police commander, against Netanyahu’s 46, with the other 25 sitting on their hands. That’s the seven from United Torah Judaism, the other seven from Ra’am, and the Joint List’s 11. Yashar says reports like that don’t come with its approval.

That plan needs seven Haredi votes to stay out of the no column, and Thursday’s a decent sign they might. Yitzhak Pindrus of United Torah Judaism told Herzog what it’d cost: Any government has to make what he calls the persecution of Torah students its top priority. Liberman won’t have a government that depends on the Haredi parties “either directly or indirectly.” So, the deal, if there is one, has a party that calls draft enforcement persecution, letting in a prime minister who ran on drafting everyone, with Liberman in the cabinet insisting he isn’t leaning on anybody.

Good luck with that.

The 67 can do one thing together, and it’s vote. Replacing Amir Ohana as Knesset speaker takes a simple majority. Yisrael Beytenu, the Democrats, the Joint List, and Yashar have all written to him about it, and Ohana says he’ll schedule it if 61 MKs ask. They have the numbers and no candidate. Bennett’s party and Liberman want Yair Lapid, and Yashar wants one of its own. [Liberman, who won’t lean on the Arab parties “directly or indirectly,” seems fine with their signatures on this one.] “First we will take control of the Knesset,” he said on Monday. After the speaker comes the agenda: the service law, the Oct. 7 commission, and now repealing the judicial reform laws.

All of that would pass on the votes of a list that says it won’t join any coalition and a party whose leader wouldn’t say the word about Hamas. That really ought to worry people whichever way they’d have voted.

Eisenkot calls Netanyahu “a caretaker prime minister with the support of only 46 members of Knesset.” The 46 checks out. He’s also still the prime minister, and he stays prime minister until somebody wins that vote. Eisenkot would get up to 42 days to try. Liberman predicts a minority government wouldn’t last a year and would bring Netanyahu back with 70 seats.

Herzog asked where all this leads. For now, it leads to Netanyahu staying put and an early return to the polls.

Uriel Zehavi is Managing Director of the Mitzpe Institute (mitzpe.org) and writes the Israel Brief (israelbrief.com), Sunday to Friday. He is the author of four books, most recently Rooted in Judea: Lives and Law in the Heart of Israel.