Gadi Eisenkot built his reputation inside the Israeli military over four decades. He served as chief of staff from 2015 to 2019. He planned operations, commanded troops, and managed threats from Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.
That career ended. He entered politics in 2022 as a junior partner in Benny Gantz’s National Unity alliance.
For most of the past year, he was a secondary figure in Israeli opposition politics. Now the polls show something else entirely. The retired general’s newly established Yashar party is gaining support fast.
Separate surveys measuring public preference for the next prime minister indicate that Eisenkot has begun matching, or in some cases overtaking, Benjamin Netanyahu. That is the single most important fact in the report.
And it demands a closer look. The timing matters. The next parliamentary election is scheduled for late October this year.
That is roughly four months away. Netanyahu has dominated Israeli politics for over a decade. He has survived corruption indictments, multiple elections, and a war that began with the deadliest security failure in Israel’s history on October 7, 2023.
Nearly three years after that attack, domestic criticism over the conduct of the war in Gaza has mounted. But no single challenger had broken through.
Eisenkot chose a different path from the other opposition figures. Former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, along with former defence minister Benny Gantz, have been the faces of the anti-Netanyahu camp for much of the period after October 7. Many observers expected that if Netanyahu were eventually defeated, it would be through some form of broad centrist alliance led by those established political figures.
Eisenkot broke away from Gantz’s National Unity alliance and launched his own party. He did not join the existing coalition of rivals.
He built something separate. The consequences for the opposition are still unclear. A fragmented centrist field could split the anti-Netanyahu vote.
Or Eisenkot’s military credentials could consolidate it. He is a retired general with four decades of experience. He speaks the language of security in a country where security is the dominant political issue.
Netanyahu has long held the advantage on that terrain. Eisenkot now threatens it.
For families across the region who follow Israeli politics closely, this shift represents a significant change in the country’s political dynamics. The name that now dominates conversations that once revolved almost entirely around the prime minister is not Lapid, not Bennett, not Gantz. It is Gadi Eisenkot.
The polls say he is matching or overtaking Netanyahu. That is the fact.
The election in late October will test whether the polls hold.
