Is Eisenkot the bloc's candidate? Bennett and Lieberman are silent - and there is a reason for it

How good it is that there are two.

Program name: Zero Hour - Governance, Right-wing, and Experience. This program is circulating in the back rooms of the 'change bloc,' and no one saw a reason to reveal it in advance. Hold on tight: an Ivvet-Bennett government. Now you just need to connect the dots to understand the script.

2026 Elections to the 26th Knesset | Mandate polls, bloc map, and updates. Mandate poll: Netanyahu is ahead of Eisenkot - and what is happening in the blocs? <<

Let's start with the principle - if the 'change bloc' of Zionist parties receives 61 mandates - it will swear in a government, period. The question that will remain is who will be the candidate for Prime Minister. If the mandate numbers are as currently published in the polls, the move will be surprising, but actually quite expected:

Lieberman and Bennett will announce a technical union for the purpose of forming the government. This will create a party of more than 20 mandates, on the scale of Eisenkot's party. They will arrive at the President and announce a joint candidacy for forming the coalition, when formally only one of them will receive the mandate. The result: a Lieberman and Bennett government, a rerun of the Lapid-Bennett government. Rotation.

Governance, Right-wing, and Experience? Their explanation will be simple: Governance is clear - ousting Netanyahu. Right-wing - two hawkish Prime Ministers, as they promised throughout the entire election campaign. Experience - experienced parties including two Prime Ministers (Bennett and Lapid), two Defense Ministers (Lieberman and Bennett), and also two Foreign and Finance Ministers (Lapid and Lieberman).

The next step will be an appeal to Eisenkot. "You waited for another round back then when they offered you to be Chief of Staff," they will tell him, "now the mission is more important - join us as a senior partner and save the country from Netanyahu as you wanted." If he refuses, they will say, we will see about him.

The 'third bloc' parties, led by Tropper, Erdan, Winter, or Gantz, will be next in line. When there is a coalition skeleton of more than 50 mandates, they will move to complete the puzzle: it could be with the Democrats, or another party from Netanyahu's bloc. Or both.

Whoever thinks it is a coincidence that Bennett and Lieberman are not willing to utter, even under torture, that they would give up forming the government to Eisenkot, is living in a movie. So now at least there are subtitles.

A senior official explained to me this week that "even Ben-Gurion, after the first elections in 1949, formed a government with the religious and small centrist parties, and left Mapam and Herut outside. He fled from the extremes and achieved statehood."

The world can turn 180 degrees in the two and a half months that remain, but if the elections were today - the Zero Hour plan would be underway. What is certain is that there will be no precedent here.

Storm at sea

The script brought above teaches about the situation we have fallen into: the narrow government concept is a tornado that has washed away every good part of the political system. This is the 'dominance paradox' of miniature coalitions - the smaller a player you are, the greater your bargaining power. The weaker the party, the less it has to lose and the much more it has to gain.

This paradox is exactly the reason that the smallest party in the current government, Otzma Yehudit with 6 mandates - received the Ministry of National Security, membership in the cabinet, and endless dominance. Also Smotrich with 7 mandates received no less than the Minister of Finance and a Minister in the Ministry of Defense, and caused a revolution in Judea and Samaria even according to his opponents.

Not to mention Gideon Sa'ar, who later received with 4 mandates the position of Foreign Minister. The dominance paradox also existed in the previous narrow government, the Bennett-Lapid government. Ra'am with 4 mandates had the power to dismantle the government at any moment. Bennett himself was a Prime Minister with 6 mandates - and Idit Silman alone dismantled the whole business. Yesh Atid, the largest party in the coalition at the time, settled for heading a transitional government, because that's how it is when you are big in a small government.

You have to internalize: the dominance paradox exists only in a narrow government and dissipates totally in a broad government. It distorts the election results and crushes the voter's will. It is also the gateway to burning streets and division among the people, which we have already learned how it might end.

The bloc concept currently existing in the political system, the one that fantasizes about a "victory in the elections" in the form of a narrow government for Netanyahu or for the 'change bloc', is a hell paved with good intentions. The thought that if one camp completes to 61, all our troubles will be solved - is the dictionary definition of "breaking into a dead end."

The 'third bloc' parties, the only solution to the disaster, are meanwhile broken into factors - unity on their lips and zero agreements between them. In the 'Kan' poll published this week, the scheme of these parties brought no less than 12 mandates, but in the existing split they receive 4 seats on a clear day. They will have to unite so as not to destroy the goal for which they were established, but one good thing they have already established - the legitimacy for a broad government.

The conclusion is clear and fateful: whoever wants to stop the dominance paradox must stop the extortion in narrow governments, otherwise we will wake up tomorrow with Ben Gvir or Yair Golan as Defense Ministers, and it really doesn't matter how many mandates they receive. The time has come for change, this time with the file.