Israel’s inconclusive election has handed opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot the first shot at forming a government—but the mandate may expose rather than resolve Israel’s political fracture.

President Isaac Herzog’s decision gives Eisenkot 28 days, with a possible 14-day extension, to assemble a majority. His bloc holds 48 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, while Benjamin Netanyahu’s camp has 53; the remaining 19 seats belong to two Arab-led lists. The arithmetic makes those parties potential kingmakers, but their support is politically combustible. ¹

Eisenkot has presented himself as the architect of a “national emergency government,” seeking to replace Netanyahu’s divisive coalition with a broader alliance. Yet his position is less liberal than the coalition challenge might suggest. The former military chief opposes Palestinian statehood and has pledged to destroy Hamas’s military wing, while also promising tougher action against extremist settlers and condemning attacks on Palestinians as “Jewish terror.” ²

That combination could help Eisenkot attract centrist and security-minded lawmakers, but it does not erase the central obstacle: whether his allies will tolerate Arab parties as formal coalition partners—or rely on their outside support. One Arab party has previously joined an Israeli government only once, and several members of Eisenkot’s bloc have rejected the idea of such an alliance. ¹

Netanyahu, meanwhile, is framing the coalition talks as a security threat rather than a parliamentary negotiation. He has warned against “hastily swearing in a government with terrorist supporters” and claimed Arab parties “want to eliminate” Israel. ³ His rhetoric echoes the broader conservative argument that Arab-backed rule would endanger the state, while also protecting his religious-nationalist bloc from scrutiny over its own divisions.

The result is a contest between Eisenkot’s promise of national unity and Netanyahu’s campaign of political alarm. Eisenkot must build a majority without alienating the Jewish parties he needs; Netanyahu must defend a bloc that has lost its majority while portraying its alternatives as illegitimate. The election produced no clear winner—only a narrower path to power for both men.