Previous articleEx-General Eisenkot could beat Netanyahu

Before the election in Israel, a close race is looming. While incumbent Netanyahu relies on polarization, his challenger Eisenkot tries to overcome the social division. Who is the ex-military? By Bettina Meier It is a highly emotional day in Re'im in southern Israel. Three years after the devastating attack by Hamas on the Nova Music Festival, the families of the victims have gathered on the edge of the Gaza Strip. In the middle is an inconspicuous man with short, white hair in a simple black shirt: Gadi Eisenkot. While around him hundreds of tablets with the faces of the more than 350 killed in the wind, the politician seeks the conversation with the mourners. “I hope that this day will make us stronger and make us even closer together,” says Eisenkot calmly. He is not a man of loud staging or long words. If he were not surrounded by photographers, he would hardly stand out among the grieving relatives. But his words carry weight for the people here - because Eisenkot's own pain is real. In December 2023, the former Chief of Staff lost his 25-year-old son Gal in the fighting in Gaza; A little later, two of his nephews also fell. Eisenkot was sitting as an observer in the war cabinet and had to mourn his own child in front of the public. Shortly after, he left the cabinet. Today he has turned personal tragedy into a political mission. His central campaign promise is to fully address the unprecedented security failure of October 7 by an independent state commission of inquiry. “He has made the family tragedy a life mission,” explains Liane Pollack-David, who is ranked 25th in his list of candidates. He brings us the hope that we will open the next chapter for Israel. "Choice between unity and division" Eisenkot's newly formed party bears the name Jaschar, which translates to "straightforward" or "forward". The movement attracts an unusually broad spectrum: secular, religious, people from all parts of the country. Even disappointed voters from the traditional strongholds of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party are changing camps. Like Stella Abidan, who elected Likud for 24 years and now feels betrayed by Netanyahu: He did nothing for our security and did nothing to prevent October 7. This government cannot continue. In order to promote social integration, the ex-general calls for what is so far unthinkable in Israel: a general compulsory military service, which should explicitly apply to Arab Israelis and ultra-Orthodox religious students. Eisenkot himself sees the coming election as a historic referendum: "We will have the choice between Zionism and the claim to rule, between unity and division, and between national responsibility and the neglect of security." Netanyahu’s counterattack incumbent Netanyahu responds to the new challenger with the usual severity and relies entirely on polarization. In AI-generated election ads, his camp accuses Eisenkot of being weak and secretly planning to establish a Palestinian state — accusations that Eisenkot rejects as slander. Netanyahu tries to squeeze the election campaign into the classic left-right scheme: “This is about left or right.” There is no straightforward, that is a bluff, he called at a campaign appearance. But those who think Eisenkot is weak because of his calm, almost wooden nature, ignore the military past of the man who served in the Israeli armed forces for 41 years and rose to the position of Chief of General Staff in 2015. As head of the Northern Command, he once coined the so-called "Dahiya Doctrine". It states that Israel responds to attacks from civilian areas with massive, asymmetrical destruction. "He looks like a nice guy, but he's very tough," said former Air Force Major General Gideon Scheffer, who has known iron feces for almost three decades. He is a leader, but a quiet leader. You don’t have to scream to be a leader. Although Eisenkot continues to grow in the polls and holds a close race with Netanyahu, he would face a huge challenge in the event of an election victory. To form a government, he would have to rely on an extremely heterogeneous political alliance that reflects the deep fractures of Israeli society. This would probably include the following parties: B'Yachad: The centrist alliance is mainly elected by the liberal, urban middle class in the greater Tel Aviv area, which is important for economic stability.The Democrats: The centre-left party represents secular academics and the traditional peace movement, which advocates social justice and a negotiated two-state solution.Jisra'el Beitenu: The secular-nationalist party of Russian and Eastern European immigrants stands for an extremely hard foreign policy, but coincides with the left in opposition to the influence of the ultra-Orthodox. Whether this balancing act can succeed remains open. Eisenkot pragmatically believes that the Israeli population is tired of loud promises after years of permanent crisis mode. When asked by the online portal YNET whether he simply lacked the necessary charisma compared to Netanyahu, Eisenkot answered soberly: I do not know what that means, charisma. I see where Netanyahu has led the State of Israel. So what is charisma