The Israeli elections set for October 27 carry exceptional weight- not only because they could close Benjamin Netanyahu's long chapter, but because they are being held amid upheavals stretching from Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria to the US-Iranian war and its regional fallout. Gadi Eisenkot has emerged as a serious challenger to Netanyahu, which makes the stakes larger than the identity of the next prime minister: they extend to the possibility of changing Israel's destructive approach, even if no fundamental shift in its policies follows.
Eisenkot draws his strength from his personal and military record. He is a Mizrahi Jew of Moroccan descent, not a member of the Ashkenazi elite that has historically dominated the institutions of the state. He rose through the ranks to serve as chief of staff between 2015 and 2019. The death of his son Gal in the Gaza war, followed by that of two of his nephews, reinforced his image as a commander who paid the war's price personally- in contrast to a political class that segments of Israeli society accuse of sending others to the front while shielding their own interests.
Eisenkot presents himself as an honest politician, a message carried in the name of his party, Yashar, meaning "upright." That image gives him an advantage over Netanyahu, who is weighed down by corruption trials and by the fallout from the failure to prevent the October 7 attack. Recent polls have put him ahead of Netanyahu on fitness for the premiership, and placed his party first or second.
But his most important source of strength may be his position on the Haredim. After years of war and its losses, resentment has mounted over the exemption of religious seminary students from military service, and the funding of their institutions from public money, while others and their children are sent to fight. Eisenkot calls for reducing support to the religious parties and for tying rights and funding to sharing the burdens of the state, describing the entrenchment of the Torah students' exemption as legislating draft evasion. A growing number of Israelis now see the dominance of the religious parties and Haredi privileges as a danger to Israel's future exceeding the danger posed by the Arabs. The issue has moved past the traditional dispute over religion and state to become a threat to society, the economy, and the army, and to the principle of equality in blood, taxes, and obligations.
The decisive challenge remains securing 61 seats, for which Eisenkot would need a coalition bringing together Naftali Bennett's list, Yair Lapid, Avigdor Lieberman's party, and the Democrats, and perhaps a small right-wing list. Such a coalition is arithmetically possible, but its components diverge on religion and state, the Palestinian question, and relations with the Arab parties.
If the bloc falls short of a majority, he could draw in defectors from Likud or the right, include the United Arab List led by Mansour Abbas or rely on its support from outside the government, or form a minority government if the Arab parties refrain from bringing it down. But Bennett and Lieberman have reservations about an Arab partnership, while Eisenkot prefers a government with a "Zionist majority." His chances are therefore real but not settled.
Regionally, an Eisenkot victory would not mean the birth of a peaceable Israel. He is the author of the Dahiyeh Doctrine, built on the use of disproportionate destructive force for deterrence; he currently rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state; and he holds hardline positions on Gaza, Hezbollah, and Iran. The change would lie in how decisions are made rather than in any reversal of security doctrine.
Even so, his victory could move Israel from a government ruled by the imperatives of Netanyahu's survival and the demands of the religious and settler right to a more institutional government, one able to combine force with compromise. The effects would vary across the region's files. In Gaza and the West Bank, no radical shift should be expected, since he holds a hardline security position. But removing the parties of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich from the government could limit annexation, settlement, and displacement, and restore weight to coordination with the Arab states and the United States. This does not mean resolving the Palestinian question, but it could move it from the logic of ideological resolution embraced by the far right to a logic of security containment and interim arrangements.
The clearest shift in prospect may be with Syria and regional relations. Rather than treating Syria as an open arena for strikes and dismantlement, Eisenkot sees its relative stability as an opportunity for security arrangements that prevent hostile forces from entrenching themselves, and as an opening to ease tensions. In Lebanon, he would be no less hardline militarily, but he might prefer to close out operations through security agreements rather than prolonging the war and exploiting it. He would also continue to deter Iran, though with closer coordination with Washington and the states of the region.
Eisenkot will not lead a "new Israel" in its relationship with the Palestinians and the region, but rather an Israel less beholden to the extremists, more amenable to negotiation, and more willing to convert military force into political arrangements. That is an important change, but on its own it does not rise to a comprehensive strategic transformation.
The regional upheavals began with Israel's response to the "Al-Aqsa Flood." One hopes the political shift awaited inside Israel will bring this phase to a close.
