Should Gadi Eisenkot win and form Israel's next government, will it mark the return of the generals to power?
Three generals have reached the premiership before him: Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, and Ariel Sharon.
Two of them left their mark on Israel's political and military history: Rabin and Sharon. The third, Barak, failed resoundingly, even though he won office in a direct popular vote and had collected, in his years of service, more decorations, and higher ones, than any soldier before him.
Rabin's mark was his wager on a settlement with the Palestinians. He was the first prime minister to make it, and he paid for it with his life, becoming the first, and still the only, Israeli prime minister to be assassinated. With his fall, the promise of peace he carried fell too.
Barak's name is attached to an achievement of a different kind, recorded on the debit side of the ledger. He sank President Bill Clinton's last attempt to rescue the peace process at Camp David, the turning point that ended the path of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. In its place came a course opened by Sharon, which looked like the foundation of a settlement imposed unilaterally: the separation barrier with the West Bank, the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, and the evacuation of military and settlement positions in the northern West Bank.
Sharon's course halted almost as soon as it began, when illness left him unable to govern. When he died, the idea of a unilateral settlement died with him.
All three generals outranked Eisenkot during his military career. Until he rose to command the army on the strength of his professional record, no one imagined him suited to lead Israel from its highest political office.
Eisenkot, who lost his son in the Gaza war, entered politics in alliance with Benny Gantz, then broke with him to go his own way, this time toward the premiership.
He has built wide popularity in a short time. Unlike the three generals before him, he has never been tested in high civilian office. Part of his appeal is that he would be Israel's first prime minister of Mizrahi, Moroccan origin. Part, too, comes from a public weary of Netanyahu's long rule. The old saying fits his case: not out of love for him, but out of hatred for Netanyahu.
In Israel, mood and impression weigh heavily in the bets placed on politicians. Every alternative to Netanyahu had been tried except him, and so the wager fell to him.
The easy, surprising popularity he has reaped will give way, once his victory is declared, to an exhausting steeplechase. The first hurdle is 61 seats. Clearing it with a purely Zionist coalition is, by every poll, impossible. The alternative is to clear it with the direct support of the Arab members, who, because neither Zionist camp can reach 61 on its own, have become the kingmakers in any coalition. Their influence will grow further if their number exceeds fourteen.
Suppose Eisenkot finds a formula and forms a government, one of leaders rather than followers. He will then face the test of whether he can deliver the change he promised. Some of it lies within reach of his Knesset majority, in domestic affairs: conscripting the Haredim, establishing a state commission of inquiry into the events of October 7, consolidating the authority of the judiciary, and other measures under the heading of reform. But what the world wants from him is what he cannot do, or can do only with great difficulty. What will he do about Gaza? How far will he move away from Netanyahu on the war against Iran and its proxies? To what extent can he change Israel’s approach to engaging with the Palestinian Authority, or reopen the political horizon Netanyahu sealed shut?
Rabin tried, failed, and was assassinated.
Sharon tried, fell ill, and died, and his idea died with him.
Can the fourth general to take the premiership leave a distinctive mark on war and politics in Israel? Or will the Barak episode repeat itself?
No one can say.
