Eisenkot and Liberman Reportedly Agree Next Knesset Speaker Should Come From Yashar

Gadi Eisenkot and Avigdor Liberman reportedly agreed at a meeting on Monday, November 9, that Israel’s next Knesset speaker should come from Eisenkot’s Yashar party. The candidate could be Eisenkot himself. The proposed replacement for incumbent speaker Amir Ohana of Likud had not been publicly identified. Naftali Bennett and Yair Golan, who lead the other parties in the bloc seeking to replace Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, had left the choice to Eisenkot and Liberman. In a joint statement after their meeting, the two leaders expressed confidence that they could establish a stable government lasting four years and said they had reached agreements on other disputed matters. The bloc requested a vote to replace Ohana on Tuesday, when the new Knesset is scheduled to be sworn in. Ohana said he would hold a vote within a week if he received the signatures of 61 lawmakers. The speaker controls the Knesset’s agenda and, after a candidate tasked with forming a government reports success, has seven days to schedule the session at which that government is sworn in.