As Israel heads into a fiercely contested general election on October 27, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot has emerged as the principal challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Eisenkot's rise comes at a pivotal moment in Israeli politics, with the election widely viewed as a referendum on the long-serving premier's leadership in the violent aftermath of Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
A recent Channel 12 poll put Eisenkot's new party, Yashar (Hebrew for "Straight" or "Upright"), ahead of Netanyahu's Likud, projecting 23 seats to Likud's 22 in the 120-member Knesset.
The same survey found that 43 percent of respondents considered Eisenkot, 66, the most suitable candidate for prime minister, compared with 34 percent for Netanyahu.
Eisenkot -- who has dismissed calls for a future Palestinian state as irrelevant after the October 7 attacks and pioneered Israel's strategy of disproportionate military responses in Lebanon -- has built his campaign around a 10-point platform that he says will restore Israel's security, unity and democratic institutions.
