No government yet, but an active parliament

Opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot is still working to form a new governing coalition to succeed Benjamin Netanyahu’s. It remains to be seen whether he will succeed. But that does not prevent representatives of the Zionist opposition in the Knesset from making efforts to reverse key decisions of the current government and introduce new legislation.

By Sacha Wigdorovits

The tug-of-war over the composition of the new Israeli government is in full swing, and news reports on the matter are coming in daily. Among these reports is one from the online portal “The Times of Israel” stating that the ultra-Orthodox party coalition United Torah Judaism (UTJ) has assured opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot that it will support him and turn its back on the Netanyahu government if the Zionist party alliance he leads agrees that young Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) will continue to be exempt from military service.

However, this demand is unacceptable to the opposition parties, as it stands in direct contradiction to what they promised their voters before the Knesset election and what they now intend to push through in parliament. Without the Haredim, however, Eisenkot is dependent on the support of the four Arab parties, which won a total of 19 seats in the October 27, 2026, election. Yet the leaders of most opposition parties have so far ruled out their participation in the government as well.

Ra’am Representative Serves on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee

At the parliamentary level, however, they have not given the Arab parties the cold shoulder. For example, Yoav Segalovitz, who represents the Islamic Ra’am party in the Knesset, is set to become a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. This is the first time a representative of an Arab party has been able to serve on this important committee of the Israeli parliament. Segalovitz is Jewish and previously served as a police commander and deputy minister of public security.

Another important personnel decision concerns the Speaker of the Knesset. With a narrow majority of 61 out of a total of 120 votes, the parliament decided to remove its incumbent Speaker, Amir Ohana of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, and replace him with a representative of the opposition.

Numerous legislative proposals submitted

In recent days, members of the opposition parties have also submitted numerous legislative proposals in the Knesset aimed at correcting the policies of the Netanyahu government. These include demands to repeal laws that would weaken the judiciary, the appointment of an independent state commission of inquiry to investigate the massacre of October 7, 2023, a term limit for prime ministers of two legislative terms, a clear separation of religion and state through the introduction of civil marriage and the operation of public transportation on Shabbat, as well as universal conscription, including mandatory service for the ultra-Orthodox.

It is still too early to say which of these proposals will ultimately be implemented. But the activities in the Knesset show that the democratic process in the Israeli legislature is in full swing, even though it is not yet clear who will eventually form the government or whether new elections will be held soon.

Sacha Wigdorovits is President of the Fokus Israel und Nahost association, which runs the website fokusisrael.ch. He studied history, German and social psychology at the University of Zurich and has worked as a US correspondent for the SonntagsZeitung, was editor-in-chief of BLICK and co-founder of the commuter newspaper 20minuten.