Israeli 'unity government': Efrat Shapira expects Herzog will urge rival camps to form a 'coalition'

Well, for more now on Israel's elections, Ifrat Shapira joins us on the program. She is the host of one of Israel's leading Israeli politics podcasts, Mifleget Hamak Shavot. Ifrat, thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us today. So can you just perhaps start by telling us where things stand now on Monday in terms of efforts to create a government and perhaps which scenario you think is most likely in the coming days? Basically, nothing has changed. We're still at a deadlock. We're still at a stalemate. And no one really knows what's going to happen because the candidates aren't saying anything. They're leaving, you know, all their cards close to their chest. And it's a big mess because, you know, Lieberman isn't saying he's just saying, I'm not going to sit with the Arabs. I'm not going to sit with the ultra-Orthodox. I'm not going to sit with Netanyahu. Where does that leave you? So no one, everyone is saying who they're not going to sit with, but no one is actually saying who they will sit with. So that's where we're now. So in the absence then of clearer intentions on the part of leaders, later this week, of course, President Isaac Herzog will meet with each of the parties to see who they prefer to see become the next prime minister, after which he'll, of course, choose the candidate, either Netanyahu or Eisenkot, based on who he thinks has the best chance to form a coalition. What do you expect Herzog to do then? Well, knowing Herzog, I think what he's going to try to do is going to try to make like a. Find the candidate who will make the unity government. Try to find the people who will be able to say, you know what, everything we promised before the elections, we have to put on the side because it's not going to materialize into anything. And we have to try to save Israel from chaos. And going into another election means chaos. We are at war, an ongoing war for three years. You know, Iran is on our head any day now. And we cannot allow ourselves to go into a second election. after, you know, only two or three weeks or months after this one. So I think what Herzog is going to try to do, I don't know how successful he will be in doing so, is try to bring these people together and say, you know, bring a widespread coalition between sides, who before the elections, were not willing to sit with each other. But maybe now, in order to save us from chaos, maybe they'll be able to, you know, find a way to make it work. I mean, with all of that in mind, I mean, you kind of suggested just how important the stakes are for Israelis and obviously for the region at large. George, uh... Why hasn't Eisencott then agreed at least openly to work with Arab parties at this stage? What do you think he has to lose at this point? I think part of his constituency. Excuse me, aren't sure that that's what they want. I mean, Israel is not only polarized between the two camps, you know, the Netanyahu camp and the Eisenhower camp, but Israel is also polarized within the camp of, you know, the change camp or whatever, the Eisenhower camp. From what I hear, you know, from people on the streets, family, friends, people who voted for that side of the map, people are not. Sure, what they themselves, some of the people want a coalition with the Likud and some people would prefer the coalition with the Arabs. Some people say Netanyahu is the worst. The first and foremost we have to do is get him out of the prime minister's office and then we can think what next. And some people say, no, we didn't get what we want, but this is the reality. This is what we have to do. And we have to sit together with. Part of the former coalition, not with Benfield, not with the extremists, not with the ultra orthodox, but, you know, with whoever's left and try to move on from there. I think I think Eisencutt's constituency themselves are not sure what they want him to do. And that's why he's very, very careful in making a statement. Now, that reticence, Efrat, obviously speaks to the deep divisions in Israeli society. I mean, I'd like to ask you rather bluntly, because from an outsider's perspective, the language about working with Arab parties is very openly racialized. I mean, do you think that there's a part then of Eisenkot's electorate, of his supporters, that kind of agree with... What Netanyahu has been saying over the past several weeks, which is that, you know, Arabs, be they Israeli or elsewhere, are the enemy. No, I don't think I don't think the issue is racism in, you know, in the past. There were Knesset members who were Arab in certain political parties who became ministers, who became part of the government within, you know, the regular parties. The issue is that some of the political Arab parties, not all of them, but some of them. are opposing to define, they're not, they don't define Israel as a Jewish state. They are not willing to define Hamas as a terrorist organization. And some of them were reluctant in, you know, denouncing the acts of terror on October 7th. So being that we are at war, I think part of the electorate of Eisenhower, the people who are opposed, you know, who are opposing an Arab-Jewish coalition, say, What happens if we have to go to war again and we have to make very, very difficult decisions? If the 61 finger will be of an Arab party who opposes the definition of Israel as a Jewish democratic state, who opposes defining Hamas as a terrorist organization, how will we be able to go forward with very, very difficult decisions that we have facing us in the fight against terror? How will we be able to lean on them for the coalition? I think that in the Eisenkot camp. There would not be any opposition to having these Arab parties in the government, but not being the 61 finger. You know, he has 48 Knesset members without the Arab parties. He can't reach a majority without them. If he would have had 61 without the Arab parties and would ask them to join the coalition and be, you know, 70, I don't think anyone would oppose that. But giving them Again, the ability to topple down the government. Every Monday and Thursday, because of things that they oppose, when we are de facto at war for three years against enemies that they are sometimes reluctant to define as enemies, that's a very difficult position to be in. So, I mean, I'll ask you kind of a similar question then from the perspective of these Arab parties. I mean, I know that they're not necessarily homogenous, ideologically speaking. What have they said about these conditions, at least since last week's election? So you have Mansour Abbas and the Ra'am party. Mansour Abbas has said in the past, we have to accept the fact that Israel is a Jewish democratic state. It's not going to change. We have to learn to work with that. And I think his eight seats in the parliament would, you know, go easy down a lot of Israelis' throats. But the other parties with Ahmad Tibi and, you know, one of them was the Supreme Court of Israel basically told him, put yourself out of the out of the list because we're not going to be able to let you be a candidate with this party because he didn't denounce on October 7th. He wrote an article he talked about. He didn't denounce it. And better yet, he even supported it in so many words. So they have yet to say. What their decision is, they have yet to say, do they even want to join the coalition? Because traditionally, the Arab parties were not left out governments by the Israeli side. They also never wanted to join governments. It's very comfortable for them to be on the outside, to support the government when it's good, you know, when they agree, but not to be part of government because. I love the fact that they oppose the state of Israel being a Jewish democratic state. And a lot of them think when you ask them specifically, you know, what do you think of Netanyahu? What do you think of Eisenhower? They'll say they're all the same. So, of course, obviously, they want to get Netanyahu out of the prime minister's office. But when once Eisenhower becomes prime minister, if that ever happens, they will have a lot of criticism about him. They will you know, some of them think that he's racist and he's as bad as all the other ones. So it's a very comfortable place to be. They're also not saying what they want. So everyone is keeping their cards close to their chest. No one is really. Thank doing anything to endanger, you know, the next step or no one really wants to say what the next step is going to be. And that's why we're at a deadlock. you And I don't know if Herzog will be able to, you know, get us out of that deadlock. But once the the starting the countdown starts, so because there's a countdown from, you know, X days after the election, you have, if I'm not much. mistaken, 30 days and then 45 days to form a coalition. Once the countdown starts. That's when people are going to have to start saying what their preferences are. We'll see how that plays out then between now and Wednesday. Efrat Shapira, that's unfortunately all we have time for. But thank you very much for coming on the show today. Thank you.