A Channel 12 News segment broadcast on October 30, 2026, reports Mansour Abbas’s view that the chances of a minority government are slim. Photo: N12 News (@N12News) via X
Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas believes Gadi Eisenkot’s conditions for a government would not be an obstacle, Israel’s Channel 12 reported Friday, though he sees only a slim chance of a minority government.
Abbas thinks a path to such a government still exists if the parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “show flexibility,” Channel 12 News said on X on Friday evening. The report came a day after the channel revealed that Abbas had told a closed meeting of his party’s leadership that the chances of a minority government were “slim to nonexistent.”
Israel’s Central Elections Committee announced on Thursday that all votes from the October 27 election had been counted, including the double envelope ballots of soldiers and others, Channel 12 reported. In the final results, Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, the bloc led by Eisenkot won 48 and Arab led parties won a record 19, with eight for Ra’am and 11 for the Joint List. No camp has the 61 seats needed for a majority.
According to Channel 12’s political commentator Amit Segal, it was Abbas himself who first proposed the idea that, if the anti Netanyahu bloc won a Jewish majority, it could form a minority government with Ra’am’s support from outside. Eisenkot adopted the idea in a plan revealed months ago. After the election, however, the Jewish majority turned out to be on Netanyahu’s side, and Abbas reasoned that a minority government would also require negotiations with the factions of the Joint List, Segal wrote. He said the most likely outcomes now are a unity government between Netanyahu and Eisenkot, or another election.
Democrats leader Yair Golan, the only figure in the Jewish led opposition who openly supports partnering with Ra’am, met Abbas on Thursday. Ra’am said they “discussed ways to establish a government headed by Eisenkot.” In a video shared on X on Friday, Golan said he had also met Eisenkot, Yair Lapid and Avigdor Liberman, and that all were determined to form a government. “We have 48 Zionist seats, plus the eight seats of Mansour Abbas, who was our partner in the past,” he said, in Mereja Media’s translation. He said they would need one more partner, possibly the Joint List’s chairman Youssef Jabareen from outside the coalition, adding, “Rabin did it before us.”
Most other leaders of the Jewish led opposition parties have said they will not rely on Arab parties to form a government, and both Naftali Bennett and Liberman have repeatedly said they will not sit in a government with Netanyahu. Even if either joined Netanyahu, his bloc would reach only 60 seats, Channel 12 noted.
On Saturday, Liberman wrote on X that he had “absolutely no desire or intention” to serve as Knesset speaker, answering claims that he would demand the post, Ynet reported. He has repeatedly ruled out a government that relies on Arab parties, the site said, while a senior Likud official told it the concessions needed for a unity government make one “extremely unlikely.”
Eisenkot said on Thursday that his Yashar party is preparing bills on universal military and national service, a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 attack and budget reform, to be brought to a vote after the new Knesset is sworn in on November 10, according to Jewish News. “Remain patient; there is hope. We will bring it about. I give you my word,” he said.
On X, Israeli commentators debated what Abbas meant. Shemuel Meir (@ShemuelMeir), a former army analyst who blogs for Haaretz, asked whether Abbas was hinting at an acceptable formula on Eisenkot’s fourth condition, since he already meets the first three, adding that this “may determine the chance of a government of change.” Political strategist Itzik Elrov (@itzikelrov) wrote that online messaging against Eisenkot had shifted to say people supported him but opposed his sitting with Abbas.
Abbas said publicly on election night that he will decide whether Ra’am meets Eisenkot’s criteria only “after I know if there is a government,” JFeed reported.