tel aviv —
On the night of June 8, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party posted four words on its official X account.
“Without Tibi, there is no Gadi.”
The short message was accompanied by an 11-second AI-generated clip showing two politicians, Gadi Eisenkot and Ahmad Tibi, standing side by side in front of a darkened parliament.
“There is no government in Eisenkot without Arabs,” the text read, referring to the famous Arab lawmaker Tibi.
The post highlighted two fundamental elements of the party’s campaign ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for late October. First, Netanyahu will once again rely on the anti-Arab rhetoric his party has employed for years. And second, Israel’s former military commander Eisenkot is now seen as the main political threat to the country’s longest-serving leader.
Mr. Eisenkot’s name may not yet resonate internationally, but he is becoming increasingly prominent in Israel as the main challenger to Mr. Netanyahu, replacing former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. An adviser to Prime Minister Netanyahu said he plans to release 400 more videos about Eisenkot.
Eisenkot’s Yashar party, Hebrew for “Frank” or “Honest,” is less than a year old and until recently had languished in the single digits in most polls. Most surveys now show the country ranking close to Likud and ahead of the joint list drawn up by Bennett and another former prime minister, Yair Lapid.
Both men were trying to unite Eisenkot into a unified bloc of anti-Prime Minister Netanyahu. But he rejected that, choosing to run as an independent and is now ahead of them in several polls.
The latest Channel 12 poll predicts that Eisenkot’s party will win 21 seats in Israel’s Knesset, behind Likud’s 23 seats and ahead of Bennett-Lapid’s 18 seats. When asked who was the best candidate to be prime minister, 38% of respondents said Eisenkot. 36% said Netanyahu. Other major polling organizations show similar trends.
This shift is also reflected in Likud’s messaging, which has begun to treat Eisenkot as Netanyahu’s main rival, after previously focusing on Bennett.
In recent weeks, a campaign video has begun circulating that mocks Mr. Eisenkot’s heavily accented English, contrasting it with the polished international speech of Mr. Netanyahu, a Pennsylvania high school graduate. A new line of attack has also emerged: “Mr. Ghadi will not attack Iran.”
But that contrast may also be part of Eisenkot’s appeal, analysts say. In style and public persona, he is more the opposite of Netanyahu than any of his rivals in recent years.
Netanyahu, 76, has spent decades mastering political theater, sharp messages and spectacular performances. Eisenkot is soft-spoken, reserved, and undramatic. It’s not like a viral meme. He is a former military planner with a focus on process and strategy.
Their biographies highlight their differences. The son of a historian, Netanyahu grew up among Jerusalem’s elite and served in the military’s prestigious Sayeret Matkal special forces. Eisenkot, 66, is the second of nine children born to Moroccan immigrants. He grew up in Tiberias and Eilat, outside of Israel’s traditional centers of power and influence. After serving in the Golani Brigade as a soldier, he was chosen by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to serve as chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from 2015 to 2019.
“Gadi, under your command, the IDF has done a great job,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said at Eisenkot’s retirement ceremony in 2019. “I salute him for his many accomplishments as a fighter and a commander,” he said.
His tenure was marked by both political pressure and controversy. In 2016, Eisenkot led the prosecution of Erol Azaria, a medic convicted of killing a wounded Palestinian assailant in Hebron, a case that became a political flashpoint over military ethics and rules of engagement. Despite significant pressure from the right, including Prime Minister Netanyahu himself, he supported the military’s legal process.
Eisenkot entered politics in 2022 under the guidance of another former military chief, Benny Gantz. Since October 7, both men have joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet. As time went on, Mr. Eisenkot became increasingly critical of the government’s wartime actions and lack of a clear strategy, particularly regarding hostages being held in Gaza.
In a February 2024 letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu and his war cabinet, he wrote that “the war is being waged by tactical interests without any major moves to achieve strategic goals.”
The war also changed his personal story. Two months after the fighting began, his youngest son Gul was killed in Gaza. Two of his nephews later died in battle. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s own son, Yair, spent most of the war in Miami and did not serve in the reserves.
“We will continue to be a united and happy family so that your sacrifices will not be in vain,” Eisenkot said at her son’s funeral. “We will do everything to be worthy and make the right decisions for those who have sacrificed, for our compatriots who are fighting, and for the entire nation of Israel.”
By June 2024, Eisenkot and Gantz had left the Emergency War Cabinet, citing the absence of a final war. A year later, Eisenkot split from Gantz and formed his own party, which steadily gained momentum.
“He appears to people as a huggable figure,” columnist Nachum Barnea wrote in Yediot Aharonot this week, describing Eisenkot’s appeal as “emotional” and attributing it to a combination of his being a former chief of staff, a widowed father and the son of Moroccans from the frontier.
His career may have political implications. Mizrahi voters, Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent, have traditionally been Likud’s core constituency, but Israel has never had a Mizrahi prime minister. Even Likud lawmaker David Bittan acknowledged in a recent interview that Eisenkot’s background and personal story “give him a very interesting advantage.” Yigal Guetta, a former member of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, said so bluntly on Israel’s Channel 12 news. “Yes, I am the Prime Minister of Morocco!”
Still, with about four months to go until the election, polls show Eisenkot is far from securing a decisive victory or an easy path to coalition government. Prime Minister Netanyahu is an experienced and skilled campaigner with an established political machine. Eisenkot has never run a national race alone.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s allies have already escalated their attacks. On pro-Netanyahu Prime Minister Channel 14, panelists criticized Mr. Eisenkot for his past leniency toward Hezbollah officials, but Mr. Eisenkot rejected the allegations and said he was considering legal action in the matter.
Likud’s message also returned to a familiar argument aimed at right-wing voters: that the anti-Netanyahu coalition depends on support from Arab parties. Instead of being directed at Bennett or Lapid, the attack was now directed at Eisenkot.
The coalition’s calculations remain central not only to Eisenkot but also to the entire anti-Netanyahu bloc. Even if opinion polls show a majority, a potential coalition spanning left, right, centrist and Arab parties will face major difficulties in forming and sustaining government.
Nevertheless, Anshel Pfeffer, The Economist’s Israel correspondent and author of a biography of Prime Minister Netanyahu, said Eisenkot stands out from previous challengers.
“Since 1996, Israeli auditions have been going on to find the person to defeat Netanyahu,” he said. “Successful people like Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon succeeded by doing something fundamentally different. Those who failed often tried to imitate him.” It’s a pattern that Pfeffer characterizes as “WannaBibis.”
Eisenkot doesn’t think that scenario is being followed. “There’s only one Netanyahu. Eisenkot is the first person in years who is opposing Netanyahu and trying to bring him down,” he said.
Pfeffer points out that Eisenkot was a central figure in shaping Israel’s military strategy, including the Dahieh Doctrine developed after the 2006 Lebanon War, which called for the use of overwhelming force against civilian infrastructure to deter future extremist attacks, and the strategic plan at the start of the Gaza war, and questions how far the differences extend. “Personally, I’m different from him, but policy-wise, I’m not as clear-cut,” Pfeffer said.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has seen multiple challengers rise to power on a wave of public expectations and support, but none have been able to match his political prowess. For now, Prime Minister Eisenkot’s contrast with Prime Minister Netanyahu appears to be boosting his momentum.
“Eisenkot is not and can never be Netanyahu, but that may be exactly what many Israelis are looking for: a fundamentally different style of leadership,” Pfeffer said.
