National Unity MK Gadi Eisenkot is seeking to unite center-left parties in the next elections, possibly under his leadership, in a bid to prevent former prime minister Naftali Bennett — widely expected to run in the next national vote — from winning opposition votes, a report said Sunday.
Haaretz reported, citing sources with knowledge of the matter, that Eisenkot and Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid have been “talking a lot” and that “it’s clear to everyone that Eisenkot has decided that in the next election, he will not be an ineffectual number two.”
The report noted that while Lapid — who has been suffering in recent opinion polling — doesn’t rule out giving Eisenkot the reins, National Unity party leader Benny Gantz does not currently plan to step down from the party’s leadership.
Eisenkot is even in talks with Yair Golan, head of the left-wing The Democrats party, regarding the option of being included in the potential bloc, the report said.
One of the factors in the new plan is Eisenkot’s dissatisfaction with Gantz’s reluctance to honor a promise to hold leadership primaries within National Unity ahead of the next elections, Haaretz said.
After a long and close partnership, the report said, relations have soured recently between Gantz and Eisenkot.
The outlet quoted an unnamed associate of Eisenkot as saying: “All the surveys among the relevant electorate point to one person who enjoys the greatest popularity. Yair Lapid has already proven he is willing to make concessions to achieve the big goal” — replacing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
“Now is the turn of the man who repeated the whole while that he puts ‘Israel above everything else,’” the source added, referring to Gantz’s campaign slogan. “The right thing is to let Eisenkot take his spot.”
Neither Eisenkot nor Yesh Atid commented on the report.
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid speaks at a conference in Tel Aviv. January 28, 2025. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
Polls have indeed increasingly pointed to mounting support for Eisenkot to replace Gantz as the head of National Unity, particularly in the highly likely scenario that the right-wing Bennett runs in the next election.
Notoriously unreliable yet highly influential in driving candidates’ decision-making, surveys have predicted a strong showing for Bennett, who could attract right-wing voters who don’t want to vote for current coalition parties due to their involvement in the failure to prevent Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, or for any other reason.
A Channel 12 poll last month showed that if Bennett runs, National Unity would get 12 Knesset seats with Eisenkot at the helm, versus eight with Gantz as the leader.
Gantz has been accused of regularly avoiding taking clear stances on contentious issues to avoid upsetting either side of the political spectrum, while Eisenkot has taken more clear positions, particularly in favor of securing the release of hostages and against Netanyahu’s handling of the war.
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