00:00Israel just picked the man who could end Benjamin Netanyahu's rule, and his name is not one
00:05most Americans know.
00:08On Saturday, President Isaac Herzog chose Gadi Eisenkot, a former army chief, to try
00:13to form Israel's next government.
00:15The formal ceremony is Sunday evening in Jerusalem.
00:18The numbers tell the story.
00:21Sixty-seven members of the Knesset recommended Eisenkot, only forty-six backed Netanyahu,
00:27and seven recommended no one at all.
00:32It follows an election on October 27th that solved nothing.
00:36Likud won the most seats of any single party, twenty-seven, but Netanyahu's wider bloc stopped
00:41at fifty-three, in a parliament of one hundred and twenty.
00:46Sixty-one seats are needed to govern, and Eisenkot's four-party alliance won just forty-eight.
00:51So here's the twist.
00:53Sixty-seven lawmakers endorsed him, but he does not have sixty-seven seats in a coalition.
00:57Not yet.
00:59Because nineteen of those sixty-seven seats belong to Arab-led parties, a record result,
01:06and Eisenkot has ruled out governing with them.
01:10So who is this man?
01:13Gadi Eisenkot is sixty-six, a former chief of staff of the Israeli military who led the
01:17army from twenty-fifteen to twenty-nineteen.
01:24He founded his own party, Yashar, in September last year, and it won twenty-one seats.
01:30His story is personal.
01:31His son Gal, twenty-five, was killed fighting in Gaza in December twenty-three.
01:36Two of his nephews were killed in the war as well.
01:39His first words were defiant, quote, Now is the time to form a national emergency government.
01:46I will do everything to ensure we are worthy.
01:50On the other side stands the longest-serving leader in Israel's history.
01:55His coalition has lost its majority, but he is not gone.
01:59He stays on as caretaker while Eisenkot tries to build a government.
02:04The clock is brutal, twenty-eight days until December 6th, with a possible fourteen-day
02:10extension.
02:11Three paths are open, and analysts say all three are unlikely.
02:15Path one, a minority government, relying on Arab support from outside.
02:21Path two, a deal with the ultra-Orthodox parties.
02:25Path three, unity with Netanyahu himself, a man he has sworn never to serve with.
02:33And if he fails, the president can pick another candidate?
02:37If no one succeeds, Israel votes again, within ninety days.
02:42Here's what surprises outsiders.
02:44On the big questions, the two rivals agree more than they differ.
02:48Both oppose a Palestinian state, and both say Israeli troops will not leave Gaza until
02:53Hamas is disarmed.
02:55But Eisenkot is selling a break with Netanyahu's leadership and his far-right allies.
03:01He calls continued Hamas rule in Gaza a profound failure, and promises to replace it within
03:08eighteen months.
03:11On Iran, his message is just as hard.
03:13He says Israel's next government must stop Iran acquiring a military nuclear capability,
03:18by force, or through an American-backed deal.
03:22The Arab parties hold the key, even though he will not govern with them.
03:26They won nineteen seats, a record, and their leaders nominated Eisenkot anyway, furious at
03:32Netanyahu's policies.
03:34The stakes reach far beyond Jerusalem.
03:36A war in Gaza now in its fourth year, and a region watching whether Israel's next government
03:43can hold together at all.
03:46So the question is simple.
03:47Can a general who lost his son in this war build a government out of rivals who agree on
03:52almost nothing?
03:53Twenty-eight days will tell us.
04:09Israel just picked a man who could end Netanyahu's rule.
04:12The question now is whether he can actually become prime minister.
04:16The next episode is a drug dealer.
