Several contenders have tried to depose Benjamin Netanyahu, who has led Israel nearly uninterrupted since 2009, and now a man who “lost his son in Gaza” is “coming for” Israel’s prime minister, said The Telegraph.
Gadi Eisenkot has been described as “gruff”, “uncharismatic”, a “stocky newcomer” and a “teddy bear with a steel spine”. Israeli politics is a complex web but if the pundits and polls are correct, he could also be called PM by the end of October.
Working-class roots
Eisenkot was “born into the Israeli working class” from which the right-wing Likud has “traditionally garnered so much support”. He was one of nine children in a Jewish family of Moroccan descent, part of a “historically marginalised minority” in Israel, said the Times of Israel.
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He joined the military as a private soldier in the Golani infantry brigade and became the most senior officer. Eisenkot’s “most controversial moment” came in 2016 when a combat medic killed a Palestinian terrorist who had already been wounded and didn’t pose a threat. In a “politically charged tribunal”, the Israeli military, backed by Eisenkot, tried and convicted the medic for manslaughter.
After retiring from the military, Eisenkot entered politics in 2022, and briefly held a role in Netanyahu’s coalition, before forming his own party, Yashar, which means “honest” in Hebrew.
His youngest son, Gal, 25, was killed in Gaza in 2023. He also lost two nephews during the invasion that followed the 7 October attacks.
Dangerous challenger
He has “emerged as the most dangerous challenger to the veteran prime minister”, said The Telegraph, after his party became the largest in the opposition bloc hoping to replace Netanyahu ahead of elections that will take place by 27 October.
A poll in the Maariv newspaper put Eisenkot ahead of Netanyahu for the first time, another found that 41% of voters thought Eisenkot would make a more suitable prime minister, against 40% for Netanyahu.
A razor-thin lead but commentators “increasingly believe that he could be the one to break” Netanyahu’s “voodoo-like grip” on the premiership with an attack from the “security-orientated centre”.
His “lack of showmanship gives many the impression he would be an authentic and strategic leader”. Dr Maoz Rosenthal, a Jerusalem-based political analyst, told The Telegraph that many of those who are “fed up” with Netanyahu “kind-of like this old general who hesitates before he speaks and who wants to be sure of what comes out of his mouth”.
Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, the spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party and an influential figure in Israeli politics, suggested that Shas could “be open” to joining a government led by Eisenkot, said The Jerusalem Post.
“We are in a secular country ... There are those whom I don’t believe will repent,” said Yosef in a filmed speech. “There’s no chance [Netanyahu] will repent. Eisenkot might repent.”
