When Gadi Eisenkot decided to appeal to the Israeli public and seek its trust in a bid to become prime minister, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu felt he was in trouble. He was facing a figure unlike his previous rivals, Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid, Tzipi Livni, and even Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak.
The new challenger, Eisenkot, is not only a former army chief of staff with a strong military record, but also possesses distinctive personal qualities. He is the complete opposite of Netanyahu. Israeli analysts describe him as “straight as an arrow,” which is why his colleagues named their new party Yashar, meaning “straight.” He is a decent man. He does not swear, play political games, wage battles against the press, or engage in conspiracies. He is said to be made of a different mold from Israel's new generation of politicians. Some compare him to Yitzhak Rabin.
The Opposite of Netanyahu
Eisenkot is not a conventional opposition politician. When Israel was caught off guard by the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, and suffered a psychological shock, Eisenkot approached Netanyahu carrying a lifeline. Instead of pushing him to resign over the massive failure, Generals Eisenkot and Benny Gantz came to his support. They joined his government four days after the disaster and placed their experience and determination at his disposal to wage a war of retaliation.
Eisenkot is also not one of those leaders whose lives are riddled with flaws and scandals that opponents can exploit against them in political battles. His life is modest. His wife stays far from the spotlight. He is not known for extravagance, greed, or avarice. He does not accept gifts.
Nor does he belong to the Ashkenazi elite that has ruled, and continues to rule, Israel since its establishment. He comes from a family of Moroccan roots, and he takes pride in that heritage.
And that is not all. Eisenkot is a bereaved father. Just two years ago, his son was killed in the war in Gaza. His sister's son and his brother's son were also killed.
So how does Netanyahu conduct his electoral battle against such a figure? How can he turn against a man who stood beside him and supported him at his most difficult moments?
But these perfectly legitimate questions seem naive when faced with a figure like Netanyahu. He wants to win the election at any cost. He therefore wages his electoral battle without mercy, tearing down every word of praise for Eisenkot and inventing attributes, statements, and actions to pin on him.
For example, in a series aired by Channel 14, which is affiliated with Netanyahu, titled “Eisenkot” and aimed at undermining the man's stature and character, political correspondent Moti Kastel says: “Gadi Eisenkot is a man of the left. I also spoke with many people who were in the cabinet. When difficult decisions were on the table, they told me: ‘Gadi Eisenkot thinks like the left and says what he thinks.’ Gadi Eisenkot is a beloved, pampered teddy bear, gentle, at least in his appearance and demeanor. He is not fit to be prime minister in a country engulfed in wars.”
He adds: “Eisenkot is not an ordinary man of the left. He is deeply on the left. When a Palestinian girl carrying scissors approached a group of soldiers, he ordered them not to shoot her. He said: If there is a 13-year-old girl holding scissors or a knife, and there is a barrier between her and the soldiers, I will not accept a soldier opening fire and emptying a magazine of ammunition into such a girl, even if she is carrying out a very dangerous act. When Hamas fired 500 rockets at us, he justified not responding with a war by saying: ‘If, for every rocket that is fired, we go to war, we will end up in a Hundred Years' War.’ Is this a commander? He is someone who can be shaped like a PlayStation game. Others can decide on his behalf what he says, and they can decide on his behalf what he does. I believe Ehud Barak is behind him. He sees him today as someone capable of bringing down Netanyahu and moving Israel's leadership and government to the farthest left, the most liberal, the most progressive position. Yes, he has such foundations. Yes, he is committed to those people.”
A Defensive Position
It is clear that Netanyahu's electoral campaign is based on directing a series of accusations at Eisenkot. It does not matter whether they are true or based on lies. The goal is to undermine his image in the eyes of the public. But this is a familiar tactic in election campaigns. He wants Eisenkot to remain constantly occupied with defending himself. He does not want to give him room to breathe.
Netanyahu, who is prime minister and, by virtue of that position, should be the one facing scrutiny, criticism, and attacks, leaves no room for Eisenkot and keeps him constantly explaining, justifying, and defending himself. He has succeeded in doing so. Anyone who visits Eisenkot's social media accounts finds a prominent headline: “10 Lies.” It is a defense against the series of lies contained in Netanyahu's campaign.
Within this campaign, it is clear that Eisenkot has fallen into its trap and is trying to prove that he is the true liberal right. Netanyahu accuses him of planning to form a government based on Arab parties, so Eisenkot says that after October 7, he will not form a government with Arabs. He accuses him of supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state, and Eisenkot responds that he has never once said that he supports such a state, pointing out that Netanyahu was the one who had declared his support for the two-state solution. Netanyahu accuses him of promoting the theory of reducing the army, “a small and smart army,” which turned it into “a large and stupid army.”
Eisenkot tries to prove that he was the one who shut down wasteful and unnecessary military units and established a commando unit that operates far behind enemy lines. Netanyahu accuses him of advocating a policy of avoiding war in the fight against terrorism. Eisenkot responds that he was the one who crushed the Second Intifada when he was commander of the army in the West Bank, and that he was the one who etched the “Dahiya doctrine” into history when he carried out the strikes that destroyed Beirut's southern suburbs in 2006.
The biggest problem is that Eisenkot is not fighting Netanyahu alone. He is also facing his allies, Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid, and Avigdor Lieberman. Supposedly, they are on the same side and want to bring down Netanyahu because he is responsible for the biggest security and strategic failure in Israel's history. Yet they openly say they do not trust Eisenkot to lead the alternative camp, even though he is winning the highest number of seats in the polls.
He has proposed a modest, practical solution: “Let us agree that whoever wins the largest number of seats becomes our collective candidate for prime minister.” But they rejected it, with each demanding the position of prime minister for himself. The latest poll gives Eisenkot 22 seats, compared with 13 for Bennett and Lapid and nine for Lieberman.
Eisenkot, who was an opposition lawmaker on October 7 and rushed to help prevent the government from collapsing, helping transform Israel from a stunned and traumatized state into a state waging a fierce war against the Palestinians, paid a heavy personal price in the process. He lost his son, his sister's son, and his brother's son. Today, he and his party are putting forward a plan to make Israel a normal state that ends wars through political agreements and improves its standing in the world.
Yet he now finds himself in the defendant's seat before Netanyahu. He is fighting to make people remember the qualities that made him a popular figure for so long. He is trying to prove that he is not a “beloved, pampered teddy bear,” nor “someone who can be shaped like a PlayStation game,” but a leader carrying out a national duty to save Israel from itself. There is no doubt that it is a difficult battle, and its success is not necessarily guaranteed.
