Can Gadi Eisenkot unseat Netanyahu in Israel's post-war election?

On October 7, 2023, former army chief Gadi Eisenkot drove his youngest son to war. Gal Meir Eisenkot, 25, was a biology student at Tel Aviv University and a reservist called to duty as Israel faced one of the deadliest mornings in its history: a Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 hostage. Eisenkot personally dropped his son at a military assembly point.

Two months later, Eisenkot was overseeing operations in Gaza as a minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet when he learnt that Gal had been killed in northern Gaza while attempting to retrieve the bodies of hostages. His emotional eulogy moved a country already in the grip of grief. The general, usually a picture of restraint, appeared in a different role: a father who had lost his son while his country was at war. Nearly three years later, that image has followed him into politics.

Israel goes to the polls on October 27, its first national election since the Hamas attack, to determine the composition of the 120-member Knesset. More importantly, it will answer the question whether Eisenkot can form a government after one of the most traumatic periods in Israel’s history or whether Netanyahu, seeking an unprecedented seventh term, can extend his long political career.

THE GENERAL STEPS UP

Eisenkot’s emergence as one of Netanyahu’s principal challengers is striking because he does not look like one. He rarely delivers the grand speeches for which Netanyahu is famous. He is not a natural on television and speaks halting English with a thick accent. His manner remains closer to that of the career soldier: measured, restrained and occasionally awkward.

While Netanyahu has spent decades cultivating the image of a suave and shrewd politician of international stature, Eisenkot’s credibility comes from military service, personal story and the perception that he has little appetite for political theatre. Israelis have noticed the contrast. They have also noticed that when Eisenkot bade a tearful farewell to Gal, Netanyahu’s son Yair was in Miami, far removed from the conflict. “Eisenkot is everything that Netanyahu is not. Netanyahu is a player. Eisenkot is quite a regular person,” Gideon Rahat, who teaches political science at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, told ABC News.

Born in Galilee in 1960 to Moroccan immigrant parents and raised in working-class Eilat, Eisenkot joined the army as an infantryman and spent almost four decades climbing the Israel Defence Forces hierarchy. When Netanyahu first became prime minister in 1996, Eisenkot was a colonel in the IDF. He became chief of staff in 2015 and served until 2019.

Eisenkot joined Netanyahu’s war cabinet after the October 7 attacks but resigned less than a year later, accusing the government of failing to set a clear strategy for the war and arguing that political considerations were getting in the way of decisions on the hostages. He soon launched Yashar, a movement whose name means “straight” or “honest”. Its message is deliberately old-fashioned: restore institutions, establish an independent commission of inquiry into October 7, impose universal military or national service and bring greater personal integrity to public life.

Eisenkot’s security credentials are difficult for Netanyahu and his Likud Party to dismiss. There is, in fact, a distinctly old-Likud quality to his politics. He is centre-right, security-minded and institutionally conservative. He believes Israel must remain militarily dominant and favours the use of disproportionate force against militant groups. His politics, therefore, does not fit neatly into the image of a liberal opposition candidate challenging a right-wing prime minister. Eisenkot is not asking Israelis who traditionally vote for the right to abandon their security concerns. He is asking whether those concerns still require Netanyahu.

NETANYAHU’S POLITICAL ARMOUR

Netanyahu, 76, has been prime minister for a total of 19 years across several terms. Since March 2009, he has been prime minister barring an interlude of a year and a half when Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid briefly held the top post. He has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to hold together coalitions that can appear almost impossible to manage. His current government brings together far-right nationalist parties and ultra-Orthodox factions, each with its own priorities and red lines. Yet he has kept it functioning through mass protests, a prolonged war, international pressure and his corruption trial. His political appeal rests partly on a simple argument: Israel needs a leader who knows how to deal with a dangerous neighbourhood. He has cultivated that image for decades. His relationships with global leaders such as Donald Trump, Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin give him an international profile few domestic rivals can match. He also knows how to turn foreign policy into domestic politics. A confrontation with Iran, a dispute with Washington or a military operation in Lebanon or Gaza can become part of the larger argument over who is capable of protecting Israel.

His relationship with the ultra-Orthodox parties is another source of political strength. Shas and United Torah Judaism have provided him with a disciplined bloc and, in return, he has protected their interests, including on military service and religious institutions.

His command of Likud matters, too. Over the years, Netanyahu has neutralised potential challengers inside his party, leaving no obvious successor. He has also become adept at speaking directly to his supporters. Right-wing television networks, particularly Channel 14, and a large digital ecosystem allow him to communicate with an electorate that often distrusts the mainstream media.

WHERE NETANYAHU IS VULNERABLE

The strengths that carried Netanyahu through previous elections are now set against serious vulnerabilities. The biggest challenge is October 7 itself. Netanyahu was prime minister when Hamas launched its devastating assault, exposing failures across Israel’s political, intelligence and military establishments. He has resisted demands for a state commission of inquiry, arguing that such a process should not be conducted while the country is still at war.

Questions have also been raised about whether warnings before the attack were adequately heeded. According to the Wall Street Journal, Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel flew to Israel in September 2023 to warn about the attacks after earlier messages were ignored. The WSJ report came a few weeks after the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed had alerted Netanyahu that Hamas was planning a major attack.

Veteran journalist Ido Dissentshik, who was editor-in-chief of the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, told THE WEEK in the days after the October 7 attacks that Netanyahu should have resigned. “There is no doubt in my mind that the person at fault is Netanyahu,” said Dissentshik, “because he was not doing what he needed to do, to take care of the country.”

Then there is exhaustion. Nearly three years of continuous warfare have placed an enormous burden on reservists, families and businesses. Israel’s economy has absorbed the cost of mobilisation while the country continues to grapple with the social consequences of the prolonged conflict.

The issue of Haredi military service is another fault line. Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled against sweeping exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men, but enforcing military service threatens the coalition on which Netanyahu depends. Secular and national-religious Israelis increasingly resent carrying a disproportionate share of the burden of war.

Netanyahu also faces growing pressure over Israel’s international position. His relationship with US President Donald Trump has become more complicated, particularly over Iran, with Trump publicly criticising Netanyahu over disagreements surrounding the US-Iran peace effort. Israel’s standing among the American public has also weakened sharply, with growing unease over the war spilling into political debate in Washington. At the same time, several western governments have taken punitive measures over Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank, adding to the diplomatic pressure on Netanyahu.

His legal troubles have not disappeared either. Netanyahu remains on trial in three criminal cases involving charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, all of which he denies. The cases have shadowed his political career for years. So has his pre-war attempt to overhaul the judiciary, which triggered some of the largest protests in Israel before October 7 and deepened an already bitter political polarisation. The war temporarily pushed those divisions into the background. The election could bring them back to the centre of the political debate.

THE BATTLE FOR 61

Despite the advantages he enjoys, things may not be easy for Eisenkot. Israel does not elect a prime minister directly. Unlike the first-past-the-post system used in countries such as India and the US, it uses nationwide proportional representation. Voters choose party lists and the 120 Knesset seats are distributed among parties that cross the 3.25 per cent threshold. After the election, parties negotiate until one leader can command the support of at least 61 lawmakers. Winning the most seats is therefore not enough. A leader needs partners. No Israeli prime minister has ever won a clear majority in the Knesset. The closest was Golda Meir in 1969, when her list finished with 56 seats.

Eisenkot also faces a crowded field in the opposition. Former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid have joined forces in B’Yachad. Yair Golan leads the Democrats, formed by the merger of Labor and Meretz. Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu continues to appeal to secular and hawkish voters. Benny Gantz’s Blue and White, once Netanyahu’s principal challenger, has lost much of its earlier strength. These parties may share a desire to prevent another Netanyahu-led government, but they do not represent the same constituency. They can cooperate to avoid wasting votes, but they do not necessarily agree on what should come next.

Then comes the question of the Arab-majority parties. If the Zionist opposition falls short of 61 seats, it could require outside parliamentary support from parties such as Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas. Netanyahu has already made that prospect a central line of attack, warning that Eisenkot could bring an Arab party into the ruling coalition.

“Most Israelis do want some kind of broad government, without extremists. Without the haredim and without the Arabs, for that matter… Netanyahu doesn’t have the cards in his hands to win, and could instead be focusing on not losing,” Ofer Kenig, a political expert at the Israel Democracy Institute, told The Jerusalem Post. Surveys reflect that uncertainty. Yashar and Likud remain close at the party level, while neither broad camp has established a clear route to 61 seats.

Eisenkot’s political identity was visible long before he entered the race. In 2016, when an IDF soldier, Elor Azaria, was filmed shooting an incapacitated Palestinian attacker in Hebron, Eisenkot, then chief of staff, openly condemned the killing as a breach of military rules and backed a manslaughter court-martial, despite Netanyahu and others on the political right rooting for Azaria. “An 18-year-old soldier in the IDF is not ‘everyone’s child.’ He is a fighter, a warrior, who must follow the rules of engagement and the values of the military, even when it is difficult,” argued Eisenkot.

That episode captures the difference at the heart of this election. Eisenkot’s appeal rests on institutions, rules and a soldier’s conception of duty. Netanyahu’s strength has always been different: political instinct, coalition management and an extraordinary capacity to survive. The October 27 election will test whether Eisenkot can convert his credibility into a governing coalition. For Netanyahu, it will be another test of the political resilience that has carried him through crises that once appeared capable of ending his career.