JERUSALEM — As Israel’s newly elected parliament convened for the first time Tuesday, Israeli opposition leaders, who together now hold the majority of seats, submitted a raft of bills aiming to apply scrutiny to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of events leading up to and around the Oct. 7 attack and roll back some of his most controversial legislation.
Yashar, the party led by retired general Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu’s main challenger for the prime minister’s seat, submitted a long-promised bill to form a state commission of inquiry into the Hamas-led attack on Israeli on Oct. 7, 2023, that was previously blocked by the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, when it was dominated by Netanyahu’s coalition.
Eisenkot’s party also moved to repeal the Netanyahu government’s controversial judicial overhaul, which sought to limit the court’s powers, and to set term limits for the prime minister. The flurry of bills, taken together, would amount to a “regime overhaul,” Yashar said, taking wide aim at Israeli institutions, from the judiciary to media regulators, it has argued are under the sway of Israel’s longest-serving leader.
Netanyahu, who remains interim prime minister pending the formation of a new government, hit back. In an impassioned speech, he went on the offense, lashing into the Arab parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, that could potentially ally with Eisenkot’s opposition bloc to form a new government, as “terror supporters.” Netanyahu pleaded instead for a unity government that would keep him in power.
Eisenkot’s bloc is 13 seats short of the 61-seat majority needed to form a majority government, and he has roughly six weeks to cobble together a coalition. The Joint List and Ra’am hold 19 seats combined and have offered to support him, but Eisenkot has demanded that they meet certain criteria, including denouncing Hamas as a terrorist group, and some of his allies have ruled out partnering with Palestinian Israelis. If Eisenkot partnered with the Arab parties, Netanyahu warned, it would be “the end of the Jewish state.”
“To those who are thinking of establishing a government with these people, I say: Are you prepared to be dependent on those whose purpose is the destruction of the Jewish state?” Netanyahu asked from the podium. “You would place the fate of our country into their hands?”
At times, the first post-election Knesset meeting descended into disorderly scenes that underscored the acrimony roiling Israeli politics.
While Netanyahu spoke, former prime minister Naftali Bennett interrupted to ask why he did not label Qatar an enemy of Israel. Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, began berating Bennett, while Eisenkot, who was sandwiched in the middle, sat silently with his arms crossed. Netanyahu waited for the altercation to die down before continuing his speech.
Meanwhile, Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right member of Netanyahu’s coalition, interjected during the swearing-in of the Joint List party chief Yousef Jabareen that Jabareen to ask he if was swearing allegiance to Hamas.
That provoked a sharp rebuke from left-leaning Eisenkot ally Yair Golan, who was seated in the next aisle next to Arab politicians. Golan has repeatedly urged Eisenkot to welcome Palestinian Israelis, particularly the Ra’am party, which includes a Jewish member of parliament, into the next government.
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