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Israel's president chose Gadi Eisenkot, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fiercest rival, to try to form a new government following indecisive elections that left neither man with a clear path to power.
Isaac Herzog began talks with political parties after neither Eisenkot's bloc nor that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secured a majority in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, following last week's elections.
Herzog said that after consulting with all parties during the week, he would give Eisenkot the first chance to form a government.
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A presidential statement said the president informed Eisenkot and Netanyahu of his decision. After consulting the delegations of the new Knesset, Eisenkot received 67 recommendations for the post of prime minister and Netanyahu 46, the statement said.
The president has wide latitude to choose the person he believes has the best chance of forming a coalition and is not obligated to choose the leader of the party with the most seats.
Eisenkot now has 28 days to attempt to form a new administration, with a potential 14-day extension.
Gadi Eisenkot, former Israeli army chief of staff, posed an unexpected challenge to the man who led Israel for most of the past three decades.
Eisenkot is a newcomer to politics, only officially entering it in 2022, when he became a Knesset member for the National Unity party. He later left the party due to ideological differences, in his own words.
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Since breaking with key opposition figures last year to form his own centrist party, Yashar (meaning "right" or "upright"), Eisenkot has become Netanyahu's main rival in the elections.
In recent years, the Prime Minister has been plagued by allegations of corruption – accusations which he refutes – and criticism regarding his handling of the attacks of October 7, 2023. Added to this is the question of controversial reforms aimed at overhauling the judicial system, which have provoked major demonstrations.
But Eisenkot's determination to run against him in the election is also driven by personal tragedy.
His son, Staff Sergeant Gal Eisenkot, the youngest of his five children, was killed in an explosion in northern Gaza in December 2023, during a mission to recover the remains of two Israeli hostages captured by Hamas on October 7.
Photo credit, Reuters
Gadi Eisenkot says he still hasn't looked at his son's belongings that were given to him in a few boxes he keeps at home in Herzliya, an affluent coastal town just north of Tel Aviv.
“I still haven’t opened them. I keep putting it off,” the 66-year-old told Israeli public radio Kan Reshet Bet in April.
Gal's death, as well as the loss of two nephews during the Gaza campaign, combined with his view that the Netanyahu government had failed to prevent Hamas' unprecedented attacks, strengthened Eisenkot's political ambitions.
“I can’t go back in time,” he told The Times of Israel earlier this month. “I will do everything possible to be worthy of the heavy sacrifice Gal has made. »
Holding Netanyahu and his government accountable is among his priorities. After the October 7 attacks, Eisenkot joined the prime minister's war cabinet alongside other opposition figures, as a sign of national unity. He resigned in June 2024, criticizing Netanyahu for not acting more quickly to secure the release of hostages taken by Hamas during the attack.
“Women and children were kidnapped on his watch, and he deliberately did not do what was necessary to rescue them,” he told The Times of Israel – a claim Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected.
Photo credit, Getty Images
Netanyahu claims Eisenkot opposed key military initiatives in Gaza when he was a member of the war cabinet. According to him, Eisenkot's approach would not have weakened Hamas.
“I remember what Gadi Eisenkot said, and what others said, when we were still in Gaza… They said we should just make a deal, release the hostages and leave Gaza – leave all of Gaza,” Netanyahu said at a press conference in June, as reported by the Times of Israel.
By following this strategy, Netanyahu added, “all the members of Hamas” and senior officials assassinated by Israel during the war “would still be there, still alive, still in charge.”
In a recent interview with the Ynet news site, Eisenkot rejected Netanyahu's claims and urged the prime minister to make public the minutes of the war cabinet's deliberations and votes. Days before the elections, Eisenkot pledged to end Hamas' rule within 18 months if elected.
Eisenkot's priorities
Nadav Eyal, one of Israel's most prominent journalists and an academic who has followed his political journey, says Eisenkot's personal loss filled him "with a sense of purpose and mission."
This mission, Eyal adds, is not just about ensuring that his party, Yashar, gets enough seats in the Knesset to be able to form a coalition and remove the current prime minister.
Like Netanyahu, Eisenkot is convinced that any future plans regarding Gaza must exclude Hamas.
“It is very important to understand that his son was killed by Hamas, in a war started by Hamas,” Eyal told the BBC.
The retired general has also not expressed support for a two-state solution (the recognition of a Palestinian state alongside an Israeli state). In late August, he said that anyone who still believed in the possibility was “deluded,” according to Israeli media. However, he said he wanted to “redefine” Israel’s relations with the Palestinian Authority.
“The Palestinian Authority must be allowed to govern the 2.8 million Palestinians [in the occupied West Bank]. I don’t want to govern them,” he said in his October interview with The Times of Israel.
Photo credit, Anadolu via Getty Images
While Eisenkot supports the expansion of major settlement blocs, provided it is consistent with Israeli law and national interests, he has spoken out against controversial plans to increase the presence of Jewish settlers in certain areas of the West Bank, and specifically against plans to expand a settlement in an area known as E1, east of Jerusalem.
His reservations appear to be motivated by negative reactions from the international community, but he recently promised to "drive Jewish terrorists out of Judea and Samaria" (the name Israel uses for the occupied West Bank).
One of his campaign promises is to launch an investigation into the October 7 attacks, which would examine possible failings of the Israeli government.
The country's major media outlets published allegations that Netanyahu was warned by authorities in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt about a possible attack from Gaza.
The prime minister has denied the allegations and is suing the Israeli newspaper that made the initial accusation; he has also consistently rejected a state investigation by Israel's Supreme Court, arguing that the judiciary would be biased against him.
“This election,” says Eisenkot, “is a choice between taking responsibility and running from it. »
In his 10-point program, Eisenkot also pledged to launch an emergency program to address the number of highly skilled Israelis leaving the country and boost the arrival of new immigrants.
He also wants to end military service exemption rules for ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities and Israeli Arabs.
“Another step we will take will be the adoption of a universal service law for all Israeli citizens: military, national or civilian service, including national service for Arabs,” he told The Times of Israel.
Previous attempts to expand military service, notably by the Netanyahu government, have provoked protests from ultra-Orthodox communities.
Modest origins
Born in Tiberias and raised in Eilat, two cities far from the main centers of Israeli political power, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Eisenkot is the son of low-income Moroccan immigrants who settled in Israel in the 1950s.
Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa are called Mizrahim. No Mizrahim has ever served as Israeli prime minister, although political figures from that community have attempted to attain the position before.
New Yorker editor David Remnick, who spent time with Eisenkot during the campaign, says Eisenkot challenges Netanyahu's position as a champion of the disadvantaged in Israeli society, such as the Mizrahim — which seems at odds with the fact that Netanyahu is a descendant of Eastern European Jewish migrants and grew up in an affluent neighborhood of Jerusalem.
The Mizrahim community, which has historically supported Likud, often uses the Moroccan Arabic word "dialina" ("one of us") to refer to Eisenkot, according to Israeli media.
“My parents immigrated from Morocco and I am proud of them and my origins, but I would be happy, above all, that we are proud of our Israeli identity,” Eisenkot told Channel 13 television earlier this year.
Military life
Eisenkot joined the Israeli army at the age of 18 and spent 40 years there, rising through the ranks until reaching the position of chief of staff, which he held from 2015 to 2019.
In the 2000s, he led Israeli forces in the West Bank during the Second Intifada, a four-year Palestinian uprising in which nearly 1,000 Israelis and more than 3,000 Palestinians were killed.
Eisenkot would later be associated with the "Dahieh Doctrine", which advocates the massive use of military force against civilian infrastructure in areas where Israel believes it is under attack.
It is also important to note that Eisenkot, for all his criticism of Netanyahu, never spoke out against Israel's military response to the October 7 attacks.
Around 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led assault and 251 were taken hostage.
In response, Israel launched a military offensive in Gaza that left more than 74,200 people dead, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.
“We are forced to defend ourselves. We need to honestly examine where this all started,” Eisenkot told The Times of Israel.
Journalist and broadcaster Mehdi Hasan writes in the British daily The Guardian that “Eisenkot is not Netanyahu,” but that he would authorize “the same policies of expansion and destruction in the West Bank and Gaza.”
Anshel Pfeffer, Israel correspondent for The Economist and author of a biography of Netanyahu, says Eisenkot "is not a pacifist."
“But he also has the image of a serious man. So far during his campaign, he is not making extravagant promises. Furthermore, he does not come from a wealthy background, which makes attacks on his reputation very difficult,” Pfeffer told the BBC.
Eisenkot's emergence as Netanyahu's direct rival was somewhat unexpected, he notes.
“Until six months ago, the most likely candidate was [former Prime Minister] Naftali Bennett. But Eisenkot seems to have reached the electorate at the right time. »
Eisenkot is often described as Netanyahu's antithesis: a man who does not thrive in the spotlight and is not a great political orator. Eyal even thinks that Eisenkot does not enjoy being a politician.
A bargaining game
Although Eisenkot's party is performing well in the polls, it is unlikely to win an absolute majority in the 120-seat Knesset: 61 seats are needed to form a majority government, which has historically forced parties to form coalition governments.
But Benjamin Netanyahu is a master of post-election politics: he participated in ten national elections as head of Likud and managed to form a coalition government six times. This was particularly the case in the 2009 elections, where his party actually obtained fewer seats than its main rival.
In recent weeks, Netanyahu's campaign team has argued that Eisenkot would need the support of Arab-majority parties to form a government.
Arab parties are popular with Israel's more than two million Arab citizens and residents (who make up about 20 percent of the country's population), and polls project that the four main Arab parties (Hadash, Ta'al, Balad and Ra'am) could win a combined 12 to 15 seats in the Knesset.
“Do you want a Jewish state or a Palestinian state? the prime minister asked Eisenkot in a campaign video.
Eisenkot has publicly ruled out the presence of Arab parties in his government, but stopped short of closing the door to an anti-Netanyahu alliance in the Knesset in a possible minority government.
“Netanyahu has remained in power thanks to his ability to persuade his supporters that voting for him is a matter of life and death,” Dahlia Scheindlin, a political analyst based in Tel Aviv, told the BBC.
This time, however, Eisenkot's past could make the prime minister's job more difficult, she said.
“Military leaders have enjoyed public support since the founding of the [Israeli] state, due to the high level of trust the Israeli public places in the military. »
Repair the fences
Would an Eisenkot victory help ease tensions between Israel and the international community? Professor Yossi Mekelberg, an Israeli international relations expert at Chatham House, told the BBC this could be the case.
But he warns against any hope of “overnight change” and clarifies that replacing Netanyahu is no guarantee of goodwill on the part of Israel.
“I don't believe that any of the opposition parties, including Eisenkot's, are offering a clear alternative [to Netanyahu]. »
“If Eisenkot wins, he will have to take decisive action regarding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and improve the situation in Gaza,” adds Professor Mekelberg.
We used AI to help translate this article, originally written in English. A BBC journalist checked the translation before publication. Learn more about how we use AI.
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