Netanyahu, Eisenkot, two heads of same coin: An Israeli election dilemma | Simply Put

Think of the Israeli parliament election as the toss of a coin to decide the future of Palestinians. Heads: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling front that has killed more than 75,000 Palestinians in a three-year bombardment of Gaza will remain in power. Tails: The opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot, who vehemently opposes a two-state solution, will take control of the Knesset.

The provisional results published Thursday after more than 99 per cent of ballots were tallied do not give a clear majority to either side. The Netanyahu front led by the Likud party has more or less secured 53 seats, while Eisenkot's Yashar-led opposition has 48. The remaining 19 seats are held by Arab list parties, with Yousef Jabareen's Joint List holding 11 and Mansour Abbas's Ra'am most likely to get eight.

As the required majority in the 120-seat house is 61, the equation is simple: The bloc that gets the backing of the Arab-majority parties will win the election.

Yair Golan, the leader of the Democrats, a party that is part of the opposition bloc, has been pushing to secure the support of the Arabs. He met Abbas to "promote quickly a government of change". "This is a time for action. Our responsibility is not to miss the opportunity for change and the salvation of Israel," Golan posted on X, posing alongside Abbas, the two holding hands and smiling.

With the support of Ra'am, the opposition can grow stronger but would still fall short of the majority. That is where Yousef Jabareen's Joint List, an alliance of Arab-majority parties, namely Hadash, Balad, and Ta'al, holds the key. The US-educated Muslim politician has already confirmed that Israel needs a Jewish-Arab partnership. But, "a true and equal partnership".

Though Israelis and Palestinians have engaged in conflicts for decades, since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the last three years have seen a significant escalation in tensions. In terms of direct and indirect casualties, the destruction and the displacement of Gazans, the war that began on October 7, 2023, is the deadliest yet. The election, the first since the latest war, is highly significant in determining the future of the Palestinian people.

In this context, any straightforward coalition talks could get complicated because to unseat Netanyahu, unlikely forces must unit.

Past Jewish-Arab cooperation

Yitzhak Rabin's government formed in 1992 was the first to receive the support of Arab-majority parties. The Labor Party leader was seen as a progressive for embracing a possible Israeli-Palestinian cooperation. He signed the Oslo Accords with Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat.

Though the deal did not end the occupation or lead to an independent Palestinian state, it was widely seen as a good start to the peace process.

For his efforts to bring peace in West Asia, Rabin shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Arafat and Shimon Peres in 1994. But Rabin was assassinated during the tenure of that coalition government, shot by an Israeli law student, Yigal Amir, who opposed the peace initiative.

In May 2021, Prime Minister Netanyahu launched a campaign in the Gaza Strip, called 'Operation Guardian of the Walls'. A month later, Netanyahu's party was defeated in the parliamentary election, leading to the formation of the first Jewish-Arab coalition government in Israel.

Abbas's Ra'am, with four seats, helped Naftali Bennett become the prime minister. The party had a set of demands, including legalising at least three Bedouin villages that were unrecognised by the Netanyahu government and setting up an economic development package. Ra'am claimed that Bennett and Yair Lapid agreed to shell out more than $16 billion for the development of the Arabs in Israel.

But the power-sharing government was dissolved a year later and Netanyahu returned to power.

Is Eisenkot the answer to a Netanyahu problem?

Eisenkot is a former chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). In December 2023, two months into the invasion, Eisenkot's son Master Sergeant Gal Eisenkot (25) was killed in conflict in northern Gaza.

A year later, he was publicly criticising Netanyahu, claiming Israel's plan for a war against Hamas was wrong. The Times of Israel reported Eisenkot's opposition to the continuation of the war, without focusing on the stated goal of dismantling Hamas's military.

Even as he opposes Netanyahu's war-mongering, Eisenkot is not a friend of the Palestinians. "Anyone who is thinking about a two-state solution after October 7 is just delusional," he said this August.

At the same time, he is not in favour of the controversial E1 settlement project, an ambitious plan of the Netanyahu government to expand Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territories, which undermines the prospects of the globally demanded two-state solution.

Eisenkot's views on the settlement project are not shared by a key ally of the opposition bloc, Avigdor Liberman of Yisrael Beytenu, the party that is estimated to get seven seats. Liberman could throw a spanner in the opposition's works as he has threatened to strike a deal with the Likud party "without Bibi" (Netanyahu's nickname).

"As you know, with me, a word is a word, and everything I said before the elections remains valid after them as well. We will not sit with Bibi or with Tibi, not with Golan or with Deri. Not with Yasser Hujeirat and not with the rest of the terror supporters. Neither directly nor indirectly.

The only coalition that comes into consideration is a coalition composed solely of Zionist parties, including Likud without Bibi," Liberman posted on X after the provisional results were out. "The first decision of the next government must be to establish a state commission of inquiry, and the first law must be a draft law for everyone. A coalition in which these two clauses do not appear first and central is not relevant from our perspective."

If Liberman pulls out, the opposition will fall one short of a majority even with the backing of the Arab-majority parties.

Regardless of who sits in the prime minister's chair, there is little evidence to prove that the life of Palestinians would improve. Netanyahu and Eisenkot may differ on how Israel should be run, but when it comes to a two-state solution and controlling Palestinian territories, their differences appear far less profound. Netanyahu and Eisenkot are two heads of the same coin. For Palestinians, the toss of the coin may change who holds power in Israel, but not the terms on which they are governed.