Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, speaking on Monday, urged voters to return him to his post at the next election, adding that any effort to remove him would depend on votes cast by Arab members of parliament — a prospect he questioned publicly, asking a television channel what meaning such an outcome would carry.
Polling data gathered in recent weeks points to a consistent finding: the opposition grouping centred on former military chief Gadi Eisenkot would fall short of the numbers needed to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition unless Arab party backing is secured.
Under parliamentary rules, the Knesset holds the authority to select its speaker at any point, including before a new government has taken shape. When asked whether he would follow the path taken by his predecessor Yuli Edelstein — who chose not to convene the Knesset for a replacement vote — Ohana stated that the appointment process would not be brought before the High Court of Justice a second time, adding that adherence to the law had always been his position.
Holding the Knesset speakership under the Likud banner, Edelstein chose not to bring the chamber together in March 2020 for a vote on a permanent successor — a move that came despite 61 members, enough to constitute a parliamentary majority, having already backed his removal and called for that ballot to take place. At the time, Israeli voters had already gone to the polls three times within a four-year stretch — the third of what would become five consecutive national elections.
His position held that choosing a permanent speaker ought to wait until the shape of the incoming governing coalition became known. Every judge on the High Court bench voted to turn down his position. Supreme Court President Esther Hayut stated that his ongoing stance on the matter posed a threat to the foundational principles underpinning democratic governance.
Ohana, at that point occupying the justice minister post, had already been pressing for that course of action before the High Court bench delivered its ruling on the petition — yet when the verdict arrived, Edelstein chose to vacate the position rather than carry out what the order demanded, informing the justices that his personal conscience placed compliance beyond what he was able to accept.
Under questioning from the High Court about convening the plenum, Ohana posted on X that, in the role of Knesset speaker, he would not do so — a post that arrived against the backdrop of Likud's broader campaign messaging, which some observers have described as portraying Arab parties and their voters as outside the bounds of legitimate political participation.
The phrase "It's Bibi or Tibi" — invoking the name of Arab lawmaker Ahmad Tibi as a political contrast — has recurred across multiple election cycles as a campaign fixture. Among the incidents that drew broad attention during 2015, Netanyahu urged his base to turn out at the polls on Election Day by warning that Arab citizens were casting ballots in large numbers — a remark that prompted reactions both domestically and internationally, including a statement from the Obama administration expressing concern over language it described as divisive and marginalizing toward Arab citizens of Israel.
Polling conducted through Reichman University's Institute for Liberty and Responsibility found that voters aligned with opposition parties tended to back coalition arrangements that would include Arab parties, whereas those backing Netanyahu's bloc largely held the opposite view.
