Eisenkot emerges as Netanyahu's most credible security rival in Israel

Gadi Eisenkot is turning Benjamin Netanyahu’s strongest political claim, that only he can keep Israel safe, into a direct challenge. At 66, the former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff has built a new bid for power around military credibility, personal loss and a hard-line reputation that speaks to voters who want toughness without Netanyahu’s baggage.

Eisenkot led the IDF from 2015 to 2019, later joined Benny Gantz’s National Unity alliance and served as a minister without portfolio in the emergency war government formed after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack. He founded Yashar in 2025 and said it would contest the next election, which must be held by October 27, 2026 unless the Knesset moves it earlier. That gives him a narrow runway, but one that is already showing traction in seat projections.

His security credentials are unusually sharp for an outsider. Eisenkot is linked to the Dahiyeh doctrine, the idea of overwhelming force against areas used to launch attacks, a concept tied to his earlier military thinking and later folded into the IDF’s 2015 defense doctrine. For supporters, that history makes him a rare challenger who can compete for the same voters Netanyahu has long courted on war, deterrence and national strength. For critics, it also underscores the severity of the approach he represents.

The personal dimension has become inseparable from his political identity. Eisenkot’s son, Master Sgt. Gal Meir Eisenkot, was killed in northern Gaza on December 7, 2023. Eisenkot later said the government was not worthy of his son and the other fallen soldiers, a break that sharpened his public standing as both a grieving father and a former commander willing to confront the government over the war’s conduct.

That combination has put Yashar into the center of coalition math. In some recent polls, the party has been at roughly 20 to 22 seats, while Likud has been around 21 to 23, leaving Eisenkot close enough to Netanyahu to matter as more than a symbolic rival. Other polling has shown Yashar gaining at the expense of Naftali Bennett’s camp. If those numbers hold, Netanyahu will face a challenger who does not attack him from the dovish flank, but on the terrain he has guarded most jealously: security.