Eisenkot has four weeks left to buy a majority, and the Haredi parties have named a price
Herzog handed the mandate over on 8 November after Eisenkot collected 67 presidential recommendations to Netanyahu’s 46. Israeli reporting says Agudat Yisrael’s advisers want 48 signatures on a draft-exemption law with an override clause.
The 26th Knesset was sworn in on 10 November, two weeks after the 27 October election in which Likud took 20.51% of the vote and 27 seats, down nine. During presidential consultations in the first week of November, Eisenkot received 67 recommendations against Netanyahu’s 46 — the cleanest figure in the file, consistent across the Jerusalem Post, Gulf News and Yeni Şafak. President Isaac Herzog announced his choice on the night of 7 November and the formal handover took place at the President’s Residence the following day, starting a 28-day clock under Basic Law: The Government, extendable by up to 14 days. That puts the first deadline in early December and the outer limit around 20 December. At the ceremony Eisenkot said “unconventional steps” would be required and that “we must establish a national emergency government”; he told reporters he was open to including Netanyahu in it.
The arithmetic runs through the Haredi parties. Times of Israel reported on 13 November, flagging the item as a report rather than a confirmation, that United Torah Judaism’s rabbis are seeking signed commitments on a draft-evasion law from the entire Eisenkot bloc: all 48 MKs pledging to pass an exemption from military service for Haredim, together with an override clause barring the courts from striking it down. Its 12 November liveblog said Haredi leaders were “said to be fielding multiple overtures.” Neither is an agreement. On the other flank, the Jerusalem Post reported Joint List leader Jabareen hinting at negotiations with the bloc and listing demands, among them repeal of the Kaminitz Law on demolition of unpermitted Arab homes. Netanyahu has spent the fortnight attacking exactly that dependency, telling the Knesset on 11 November that a unity government is “essential” and that he would keep reaching out until “heart meets heart” — after warning that his opponents would govern with “terror supporters.”
Assessment: The Haredi demand, if the reporting holds, is the real story of the transition: not a ministry or a budget line but a constitutional override, extracted at the moment a bloc needs every seat. It would hand Eisenkot a government and hand his secular-centrist voters the one concession they spent a decade refusing. Watch whether any of the 48 signatures are confirmed on the record; so far nothing is. Note also how the Iran file and the coalition clock move together. Every day the cabinet question dominates is a day Eisenkot is not closing deals, and the deadline is fixed while the war talk is not.