Senior Israeli political analyst Nadav Eyal has published a bleak assessment for the anti-Netanyahu camp, arguing that Gadi Eisenkot, head of the Yashar party, currently has no stable path to forming a minority government.
Eyal breaks down the arithmetic: "Netanyahu's 53 plus Liberman's 7 will vote actively against," he explains. The only way around that wall would be if United Torah Judaism agrees to abstain while Liberman votes no, which "sounds difficult," Eyal writes and even then, Eisenkot would still need to rely on the Arab parties. "Likely to be hard for Bennett," he adds.
The nightmare scenario: how Netanyahu and Liberman could join hands
What remains on paper, according to Eyal, is a government built on the chareidim, the change bloc and Liberman together. But that is where what he calls the change bloc's "nightmare scenario" kicks in.
Eyal lays out the chain of events that makes this scenario both complicated and dangerous for Netanyahu's opponents:
A government like that cannot be formed because Shas and Aryeh Deri will not actually allow it. Along the way, Liberman drags everyone into turning their backs on proposals for universal conscription or sanctions.
As a result, Eisenkot fails to assemble a coalition within the time available to him, and the mandate returns to President Herzog.
At that point, Netanyahu receives the mandate from the president and offers Liberman a rotation. Liberman believes he can impose those terms and even secure them, including re-entry into Likud institutions. "He's not Benny Gantz, he'll go for it," Eyal estimates.
The map reaches a 60-60 split, and only one more MK from the change bloc is needed to form a Netanyahu-Liberman government.
