H. Scott Prosterman Infomred Comment
Israelis will go to the polls on October 27, for one of the most consequential elections in their history. Not unlike the upcoming 2026 midterms in the U.S., it is essentially a referendum on democracy. This is neither a hyperbolic nor dramatic assessment, as PM Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened the legitimacy of Israel’s independent judiciary, and worked to undermine opposition candidates and parties to gthe point of irrelevancy. The parallels to convicted felon Donald Trump’s actions in the U.S. are inescapable, as both leaders have fueled one another’s efforts to remain in office to avoid legal consequences for their numerous criminal activities against their own people.
Netanyahu’s most formidable challengers are former General Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces Gadi Eisenkot of the Yashar (Straight) Party, and the Beyachad (Together) Party, headed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. Recent polling projects 22 seats each for Yashar and Likud, which is a long way from the 61 seats in the Knesset or parliament necessary to form a government. Herein lies a sticky dilemma: In order to form a government, the winner needs to bring one or more of the Arab parties into their coalition, along with others. Thus far, Yashar’s success at this inclusion works against them with the Israeli far right.
“The party’s name, Yashar (literally “straight” or “upright”), reflects Eisenkot’s call for clean governance and responsibility to the public . . . It positions itself as a centrist movement focused on integrity, national security, and social healing, while leaving the possibility of future mergers with other factions open.” The platform calls for:
- Placing Israel’s security and national interests above all other considerations.
- Creating a broad governing alternative capable of forming a stable coalition.
- Serving as a platform for future political unification rather than as an isolated faction.
- Safeguarding Israel as a Jewish, democratic, and strong state in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence.”
Eisenkot created the Yashar Party in September 2025, two months after leaving the Blue and White Party, led by Benny Gantz. Eisenkot also wants to end the exemption on military service for the Haredim (Ultra-Orthodox). That has been in place since Israel’s founding, when it was necessary to rebuild the network of Jewish scholars, rabbis and libraries destroyed during the Holocaust. With all the recent wars, this exemption has become an impractical drain on the economy. The original immunity from mandatory military service at the behest of David Ben-Gurion applied to only 400 yeshiva students a year, but now covers more than 63,000. In 1977, PM Menachem Begin allowed anyone who applied on religious grounds to avoid service. Now, a majority of Israelis want to end this special treatment for the Haredim, citing “Equality of Burden” as a practical objection. The Israeli rabbinate, scholars and yeshivas have long since been restored. Now the IDF is depleted, with many troops subjected to repeated deployments, placing a strain on their families, careers and private sector income.
Unlike Netanyahu, Eisenkot has no record of criminal charges or scandals. He wants a State Commission of Inquiry into the October 7 attack and the circumstances that made Israel vulnerable. Netanyahu has objected to this, to avoid accountability for his own failures in ignoring numerous intelligence warnings of staging activity in Gaza before October 7. Imagine the outcry if President George W. Bush had resisted or stymied the 9/11 Commission. Netanyahu’s objection to exploring the military and intelligence failures appears to be an implicit admission of guilt.
Aside from being the Anti-Netanyahu, one of Eisenkot’s advantages is that his family has lost three members in Gaza, each earning Gold Star status. He lost his son Gal in December 2023, and a nephew, Maor Cohen Eisenkot, the next day. Then another nephew, Yogey Paza, was killed in November 2024. To his credit, he has not used that loss as a maudlin campaign tool, in contrast to Netanyahu’s grandstanding about how important it is for him to remain PM because of the gratuitous wars he started.
Eisenkot is not better than Netanyahu on the Palestine issue. He opposes a Palestinian state, just as Netanyahu does. Eisenkot’s position on Israeli West Bank squatter-settlements is to retain and protect major settlement blocs near Israel’s border, but to crack down on illegal outposts, unauthorized construction and settler violence. Plus an intent to restore the rule of law in the West Bank. Naturally this stance has provoked a hate campaign against him from Israel’s extremist right, and gives Netanyahu his talking points against his rival. Eitan Chikli noted in The Times of Israel, “Even after October 7, he has continued to contemplate the large-scale return of Palestinian workers to Israel. In July 2026, Eisenkot spoke in favor of eventually allowing between 100,000 and 150,000 Palestinian workers into Israel, based on the same underlying rationale. This is not merely an economic policy. It is a doctrine: according to this approach, giving the Palestinian population more to lose economically should reduce the appeal of terrorism.” Chikli calls Eisenkot “a reassuring man with a troubling doctrine.” But Chikli is simply echoing the sentiments of Israel’s far-right parties.
Eisenkot’s support for judicial independence, which Netanyahu has sought to undermine to avoid his own criminal accountability, may be the most important campaign issue. Al Jazeera columnist Simon Speakman Cordell noted that “Social-political psychologist Daniel Bar-Tal believes some of the main concerns for Jewish Israeli voters this election will be the far-right coalition government’s attempts to bypass democratic norms and to halt the de facto exemption of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox minority from conscription.” Netanyahu has managed to stave off an inquiry into the October 7 disaster, and his corruption trials, by arguing that the military conflicts he’s initiated throughout the region compel Israel’s need to keep him in office.
File photo of Eisenkot when he was General Chief of Staff. (Dept. of Defense photo by Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Dominique A. Pineiro/Released). Public Domain. Via Picryl
As with Trump in the U.S., Netanyahu is working hard to demonize and defame his more formidable opponent. Whereas Trump is trying to revive the Joe McCarthy-Roy Cohn playbook, Netanyahu is fictionalizing things about Eisenkot to make him sound like a dangerous, radical figure. Haaretz writer David Issacharoff wrote that this is the fantasy Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is constructing for this election – that “the Israeli left has never been stronger, and Arab parties are marching hand in hand back into government. The reality, though, is entirely different.”
Whoever comes out on top on October 27 will have 28 days to form a government, though a 14-day extension can occur if none is formed. The Knesset has 120 seats to mirror the last Great Assembly of the Second Temple, which also had that number. Israel recaptured the remaining wall (the “Wailing Wall”) of the Second Temple in the 1967 War. At the conclusion of the 1967 War, Foreign Minister Abba Eban allegedly stated that Israel did not intend to keep the territories they won during the war, because they didn’t want the burden of governing a hostile populace. The intent was to use those lands as bargaining chips for future security. After the 1973 War, that sentiment was never heard of again. Every war since then has turned Israel farther into the fringes of the far-far right. This election could be the point of no return.
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