Who is Gadi Eisenkot, the Israeli tasked with forming a government?
Eisenkot, 66, has up to six weeks to build a coalition before the president passes the opportunity to another candidate, most likely Benjamin Netanyahu.
JERUSALEM — The clock started ticking Sunday for Gadi Eisenkot, the leading rival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to form a new government.
After days of consultations, Israeli President Isaac Herzog presided over a ceremony that officially gave Eisenkot the mandate to forge a coalition after an inconclusive national election last month. “This is the time to reach out a hand, to do everything for the unity of our people,” Herzog said.
Eisenkot vowed to form a government “for all Israelis” and, in a nod to Israel’s fractured electoral landscape, said that it would take “creative and unconventional political steps.”
A soft-spoken former general, Eisenkot leads Yashar, a center-right party that campaigned on a promise of keeping Israel secure while pivoting away from policies that prompted international anger and led to Israel’s isolation on the world stage.
Eisenkot, 66, has up to six weeks to build a coalition before the president passes the opportunity to another candidate, most likely Netanyahu. Here’s what to know about the career general-turned-politician.
What is his background?
Eisenkot, a married father of five, was born in Tiberias, in the north, to Moroccan immigrants and was raised in Eilat, a working-class city in southern Israel.
He is relatively new to politics, having spent his career in the military, and has served only part of a single term as a lawmaker and eight months as a minister.
Eisenkot started out in the infantry and rose through the ranks to take command of Israel’s military operations in the West Bank in 2003, at the height of the second intifada. By 2015, he was serving as Israel’s top general — the military’s chief of staff — and held that role until early 2019, under Netanyahu.
He entered politics in 2022, and, after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, served in Netanyahu’s war cabinet for part of the war in the Gaza Strip. He lasted eight months, resigning in June 2024 over Netanyahu’s push for a “total victory” instead of a deal with Hamas to release the hostages.
Last year, Eisenkot formed a new party — Yashar, meaning “straight” or “honest” in Hebrew — which aimed to attract centrists and center-right voters worried about where Netanyahu’s coalition was leading Israel.
Eisenkot’s personal story also spoke to voters. One of his sons and two of his nephews were killed in the war in Gaza. He has said he hoped to be “worthy of the enormous price paid” by his son, “so that there could be a better reality here for our children.”
What would his policies look like?
Eisenkot has vowed to steer Israel toward what he considers normalcy after four turbulent years under Netanyahu’s hard-right government.
His platform in the election zeroed in on Netanyahu’s vulnerabilities, including by endorsing calls to investigate the security and intelligence failures that preceded the Oct. 7 attack. It also focused on Netanyahu’s contentious effort to weaken the Israeli judiciary.
Eisenkot has expressed support for a more restrained expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and promised to curb settler violence there, which he has called “Jewish terrorism.”
Yet an Eisenkot-led government would not be a complete break with its predecessor. Like Netanyahu, Eisenkot has rejected the prospect of Palestinian statehood and said a two-state solution would be a “grave error.”
And his stance toward the threats posed by Iran and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon could place his foreign policy not too far off that of his former boss. It was Eisenkot who in 2008 articulated the “Dahiyeh Doctrine,” which called for creating deterrence by responding to Hezbollah attacks with devastation.
What happens now?
Israel’s pivotal election on Oct. 27 left all sides short of an outright 61-seat majority in parliament. Netanyahu’s coalition won 53 seats; Eisenkot and his Zionist allies secured 48; and two Arab parties took a record 19.
Now, Eisenkot and his allies have no easy path to power.
They could join forces with the two Arab-led parties, but some right-wing Jewish parties in his bloc have said they would not enter a government that relied on their support. Eisenkot has also stipulated conditions that the Arab parties have yet to meet, such as publicly labeling Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Or, he could partner with members of Netanyahu’s coalition to form a unity government. One possibility would be to woo ultra-Orthodox parties, though some of his allies campaigned against the interests of those factions.
Last week, Eisenkot said he would work to establish a “national emergency government” to eject Netanyahu as soon as possible. That could mean a minority government reliant on the Arab parties’ support to prevent a no-confidence vote.
On Sunday, at the ceremony with Herzog, he noted that Israel’s political situation demands “compromises” — even if it meant breaking prior campaign promises.
“No one will be able to keep all of their commitments,” Eisenkot said, adding that he believed his political partners understood “the gravity of the hour.”
This article originally appeared in the New York Times.
