Gadi Eisenkot receives mandate to form government

The latest then with our correspondent Noga Tanepolsky. Noga, so President Herzog is officially tasking Gadi Eisenkot with the mission of forming a government as we speak. That's right. That's the ceremony that we're seeing now on the screen. This is a part of the constitutional process in Israel. We were informed that Herzog would do this even as early as last night, but it's happening officially right now. I should add that the president is making something of a surprising statement, given his neutral role. The president in Israel is a kind of residue of the British. When the British Mandate ruled here, he's a ceremonial head of state and yet today he is giving quite the lecture to Mr. Eisenkot, telling him that this is a time in which Israel needs a stable government, urging him to reach out to create a unity government. This is very close to a political statement in which it sounds as if the president is ...is trying to push Eisenkot to... To do exactly what Eisenkot has said he does not want to do, which is a unified government with his party and Netanyahu's party. So this is a bit of a strange ceremony this time around, but it's part of the formal procedure here in Israel. So once this official ceremony is over, how will this unfold? What can we expect in the coming weeks now? First, we have the coming days, Jenny. The newly voted in parliament is supposed to be seated and convened on Tuesday. The Likud, which is Prime Minister Netanyahu's party, is refusing to recognize the results of these elections, has called for a massive rally to surround the parliament Tuesday and prevent the new parliamentarians from being seated. And the current speaker, also a member of the ruling party, has said that he is not planning for now to hold a vote on his own replacement that day. So we are already in something, we're seeing something like a constitutional crisis here. And my understanding is that while Eisenkot keeps saying daily that he sees great urgency informing what he is calling an emergency government, he Is apparently going to wait to see what happens Tuesday and make sure that that first step you Of his new majority, he got 67 votes to recommend him to be Prime Minister, so more than the very votes of his direct bloc supported him. much. And he wants to first see, apparently, that that process of changing the Speaker of the House goes smoothly and according to law, and then will try to announce a government. As far as I know, he's already in negotiations first with the members of his immediate bloc And then with these two Arab majority parties who are the kingmakers, or possibly even one of Netanyahu's ultra-Orthodox parties that may be defecting. So he has quite a puzzle to build. Again, assuming everything goes smoothly between now and Tuesday. All right, Noga, thank you very much indeed for bringing us those updates. Correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky for us there in Jerusalem.