At a rally in central Israel on Monday, Gadi Eisenkot, the leading opponent of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accused Netanyahu of prioritizing his own political survival over the security needs of the country. Eisenkot’s remarks come amid ongoing tensions in Israeli politics as the country approaches a critical juncture in governance and security policy.
A relative newcomer to politics, Gadi Eisenkot’s party Yashar (Hebrew for “Upright”), founded a year ago, has surged in the polls in recent months, with many voters seeing him as a viable candidate to replace Netanyahu
“Will we go on for more years under a government that promotes evasion of duty without shame? “I meet many people who have been voting for the same party for decades. Unveiling the candidates of the Yashar party for the October 27 election, the former military commander said nothing about how he would handle the Palestinian question or the wars against Iran and Lebanon launched by Netanyahu, but accused him of ducking responsibility in the nearly three years since the massive Hamas attack. Yashar is expected to win 23 Knesset seats out of 120, slightly ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud at 20, according to a poll by Israel’s public broadcaster Kan published Sunday.
“In the face of the great rift that opened on October 7, and in the face of the immense challenges before the State of Israel, I believe we need a leadership that knows how to rise to the magnitude of the hour, that knows how to unite and bring unity around what we share, and to fundamentally restore the principles of stateliness and Zionism,” Eisenkot said. A government that hands out billions of shekels to those who neither serve nor work?” he said. They tell me how hard it is to vote differently,” he said. “I reply: just as you trust me, I trust you to make the courageous and right choice for Israel.”
