by Shimon Sherman
Can the Yashar party chief build a coalition that survives beyond its first vote?
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| From left: Yair Lapid (B’Yachad), Gadi Eisenkot (Yashar), Yair Golan (The Democrats), Naftali Bennett (B’Yachad) and Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) meeting at Lapid’s home in Tel Aviv, Sept. 26, 2026. Credit: Yair Lapid/X. |
Israel’s post-election deadlock has revived interest in a minority government as a possible route to replacing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. For Yashar party head Gadi Eisenkot, who received the mandate to form a government on Nov. 8, the challenge is finding an arrangement his prospective partners will support beyond the initial confidence vote.
The Oct. 27 election left Netanyahu’s bloc with 53 seats, Eisenkot’s four Jewish-led opposition parties with 48, and the Arab parties with 19. Although 67 lawmakers recommended Eisenkot for the prime ministership to President Isaac Herzog, disagreements over cooperation with the Arab and Haredi parties have prevented those endorsements from producing an agreed coalition.
Israel has faced similar dilemmas before. Minority governments have pursued major diplomatic initiatives, survived the departure of coalition partners and, in some cases, expanded into majority coalitions. Others have deteriorated rapidly as their parliamentary support collapsed. For Eisenkot, their experience raises a practical question: whether parties prepared to help remove Netanyahu are also prepared to sustain the government that replaces him.
Governing without a majority
A minority government is a coalition whose parties hold fewer than 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats. It can nevertheless command enough parliamentary support to take office and pass legislation if parties outside the coalition vote with it or abstain.
In a published analysis, Dr. Assaf Shapira of the Israel Democracy Institute explained that “the investiture vote in Israel only requires a simple majority.” The Bennett-Lapid government, for example, was approved in June 2021 by 60 votes to 59, with one abstention. Since 2014, an Israeli government can be replaced through a no-confidence motion only if at least 61 Knesset members agree on and endorse an alternative government. An opposition united against the incumbent but divided over its successor may therefore struggle to replace even a government with a relatively small parliamentary base.
However, those same lawmakers can dissolve the Knesset with 61 votes without agreeing on an alternative government. Budgets require a simple majority, but failure to pass one by the statutory deadline triggers automatic dissolution of the Knesset. A minority government therefore needs outside parties willing to support its budgets and resist calls for elections, even when they disagree with other elements of its agenda.
A history of minority governments
Yitzhak Rabin’s second government provides Israel’s most substantial precedent for prolonged minority rule. Established in 1992, it initially commanded 62 seats through a coalition of Labor, Meretz and Shas. Shas withdrew from the government in September 1993 following the Supreme Court ruling in the Deri affair, which required Rabin to dismiss Interior Minister Aryeh Deri and Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Raphael Pinhasi, reducing the governing coalition to 56 lawmakers.
Rabin continued with outside support from Hadash and the Arab Democratic Party, whose combined five seats supplied the votes needed for a parliamentary majority. Their support rested on a shared interest in advancing negotiations with the Palestinians, allowing the government to pursue its central diplomatic initiative despite losing a coalition partner.
That September, the Knesset endorsed the Declaration of Principles with the PLO by 61 votes to 50. The government subsequently signed the peace treaty with Jordan in October 1994. Three lawmakers who split from the Tzomet party joined the coalition in January 1995, raising its formal strength to 59, although Arab-party support remained important.
Presenting the Oslo II agreement to the Knesset in October 1995, Rabin tied its approval directly to his government’s survival, declaring: “The government will seek the Knesset’s approval and will view the Knesset’s decision as a vote of confidence in the government.”
The agreement passed 61–59. Following Rabin’s assassination the next month, Shimon Peres formed another minority government supported by Arab lawmakers, remaining in office until Netanyahu succeeded him after the 1996 election.
The cooperation sustained Labor-led governments for more than two years after Shas’s departure. Although the parties supporting them did not all sit around the Cabinet table, they had sufficient common interests to preserve the government and advance its principal policies.
“The case of the Rabin government indicates that a minority government can not only be politically viable but can advance incredibly consequential and transformative legislation,” Dr. Joshua Kagan, an independent researcher specializing in Middle Eastern affairs, told JNS. “It doesn’t get more important, or politically complicated, than Oslo, and the fact that a minority government got it through shows that they can be just as effective as a majority,” he added.
Other minority governments illustrate the weaknesses of this arrangement. Ehud Barak’s experience exposed the difficulty of governing when the common purpose between a coalition and its external supporters breaks down. His 1999 coalition began with seven parties and 75 seats, but brought together factions divided over religion and state, education and the Palestinian peace process.
United Torah Judaism left in September 1999. Meretz withdrew in June 2000 after disputes with Shas over education, while continuing to support Barak from outside. The following month, Shas, Yisrael B’Aliyah and the National Religious Party departed shortly before the Camp David summit. Yisrael B’Aliyah leader Natan Sharansky, then interior minister, argued that Barak was heading into negotiations without sufficiently broad support.
Barak continued diplomatic negotiations, but could no longer rely on the alliance that had brought him to power. After the outbreak of the Second Intifada and the collapse of negotiations, his political position became untenable. He was replaced as prime minister by Ariel Sharon in March 2001, eight months after losing his Knesset majority.
Sharon faced a similar rupture over his disengagement plan for Gaza, which divided Likud and prompted the departure of right-wing coalition partners. The dispute reduced Sharon’s coalition first to 55 and then to 40 seats. However, support from opposition parties, including Labor, allowed him to secure the plan’s approval in October 2004 by 67 votes to 45.
Faced with an unsustainable 40-seat coalition, Sharon moved to expand his ranks and stabilize his government. Labor subsequently joined the government in January 2005. The Knesset passed the Disengagement Implementation Law by 59 votes to 40 the following month, and the evacuation of Israeli communities in Gaza and northern Samaria proceeded in August.
“The Sharon minority government indicates that a government can survive for short periods of time with a small coalition bloc, but that in the long run a majority is still necessary,” Kagan said. “The fact that a transition to a different coalition structure was possible is what stabilized the situation,” he added.
Other governments have used minority status as a temporary stage in coalition building. Yitzhak Shamir formed a 59-seat coalition in June 1990 with outside support from Moledet’s two lawmakers, then recruited additional partners and restored a majority later that year.
The Bennett-Lapid government moved in the opposite direction. Defections undermined its parliamentary majority in 2022, and its leaders eventually initiated dissolution. The Knesset approved the measure in June by 92 votes without opposition, bringing the coalition’s attempt to govern across deep ideological divisions to an end.
“The only real case of long-term survival without a majority was Rabin, who governed for almost two and a half years without 61 votes. Rabin is a unique case, but other than him, the second a coalition dips below 61, it generally starts a clock. The first major disagreement will inevitably lead to elections, so the prime minister needs to stabilize a majority before the cracks surface,” Kagan observed. “Usually it’s a matter of months, particularly if you start from the election with a minority, until you have to get to 61,” he added.
Eisenkot’s dilemma
Eisenkot’s most immediate obstacle is obtaining agreement even for the initial confidence vote. His 48-seat bloc could win 56–53 with Ra’am’s eight lawmakers voting in favor and the Joint List’s 11 abstaining, assuming Netanyahu’s bloc voted against.
However, Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Liberman continues to reject reliance on Arab-party support, warning that such a partnership would be short-lived and ultimately strengthen Netanyahu’s bloc. On Nov. 10, he warned, “Anyone who is talking about a minority government, that means crowning Netanyahu for another full term.”
United Torah Judaism offers another possibility. Its seven lawmakers declined to recommend Netanyahu to the president, leaving him with 46 recommendations. Channel 12 reported that figures in UTJ were considering allowing an Eisenkot-led minority government to take office through abstentions. If UTJ and all 19 Arab-party lawmakers abstained, Eisenkot’s bloc could win 48–46.
Ynet reported a variation in which Ra’am lawmaker Yoav Segalovitz would vote with Eisenkot’s bloc, producing a 49–46 result with 25 abstentions. Ra’am and UTJ would then provide continuing outside support, giving the government and its supporters a combined 63 seats. Yashar cautioned that the reports were imprecise and did not necessarily reflect the negotiations.
All three calculations assume the support of Yisrael Beiteinu’s seven lawmakers. Liberman has explicitly rejected a minority government; if his faction voted against, even the proposed 49–46 result would become a defeat of 42–53.
These proposals would still require cooperation from Arab lawmakers and concessions to UTJ. Eisenkot’s commitment to expanding service obligations conflicts with the Haredi party’s demands for yeshivah-student exemptions. Naftali Bennett has meanwhile remained largely silent, but several B’Yachad officials have indicated that he does not intend to compromise on the Haredi draft.
UTJ could instead join the coalition, bringing it to 55 seats. Recruiting Shas as well would produce a 61-seat majority, the arrangement Liberman now advocates. But Shas recommended Netanyahu to the president, and securing either Haredi party would require agreement on the conscription dispute.
Eisenkot would therefore have to secure before taking office the support that Rabin relied on after losing his majority. A minority government might give him time to recruit additional partners, as Shamir did, but would also leave its survival dependent on parties outside the coalition.
“Israel’s experience shows that minority governments can exercise substantial authority when their parliamentary supporters share enough objectives. For Eisenkot, replacing Netanyahu would be the first of those objectives. The durability of his government would depend on whether its participants could agree on what follows,” Kagan noted. “In the end, if Eisenkot hopes to survive for longer than a few months, he’s likely going to need to expand past a minority.”
Shimon Sherman is a columnist covering global security, Middle Eastern affairs, and geopolitical developments. His reporting provides in-depth analysis on topics such as the resurgence of ISIS, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, judicial reforms in Israel, and the evolving landscape of militant groups in Syria and Iraq. With a focus on investigative journalism and expert interviews, his work offers critical insights into the most pressing issues shaping international relations and security.
Source: https://www.jns.org/analysis/from-rabin-to-eisenkot-the-possibilities-and-limits-of-minority-government
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