After quitting Knesset, Eisenkot says he is working on a ‘governing alternative’

A day after announcing his decision to leave Benny Gantz’s National Unity party, MK Gadi Eisenkot said that while the two former military chiefs of staff have worked together for many years and respect each other, their differences eventually drove them apart politically.

“For many months now, I have been working in every way to organize and strengthen the bloc of Zionist, patriotic, liberal and statesmanlike parties, to present a governing alternative and bring about elections and victory, as soon as possible,” Eisenkot told reporters in Tel Aviv Tuesday evening.

“My joint service and friendship with Benny Gantz goes back many years, but there are also differences of opinion,” he continued, asserting that his former party “needed a transparent and deep democratization process.”

“Unfortunately, this did not happen,” and contributed to his decision to quit, he explained, calling his former colleagues “wonderful people” with whom he is convinced he will “continue to work to create a better future.”

Among Eisenkot’s demands when he initially joined National Unity were establishing “a democratic process in the party as early as possible” and “to bring in new and young people,” he said.

National Unity recently announced that it would hold leadership primaries, although these would not extend to choosing the party’s electoral slate.

“My thought was that we needed to build a leadership alternative that would bring about victory in the next elections,” Eisenkot explained, dismissing media reports about deep ideological differences with Gantz, including over whether or not to boycott Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or eventually sit with him in a government.

“It has nothing to do with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” he said, insisting that “everyone who was in a central position [on October 7] must resign.”

“I decided to resign from the Knesset and do the right thing to return the mandate as should have happened in clean politics,” Eisenkot said, noting that fellow party MK Matan Kahana, who was sitting nearby, had chosen to do the same.

Kahana represents the right-wing flank of Gantz’s center-right party and, according to national broadcaster Kan, had met multiple times with former prime minister Naftali Bennett, on whose advice he reportedly resigned from Gantz’s party.

The move has sparked speculation that Kahana, a confidant of Bennett and a former member of his now-defunct Yamina party, will join the former prime minister’s recently registered party.

Speaking with The Times of Israel ahead of Tuesday’s press conference, Kahana said he has been in touch with Bennett and will try to broker a political alliance between him and Eisenkot.

Queried regarding reports that he is in talks with both Bennett and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid, Eisenkot told reporters that he respects both men and that he “meets regularly” with Bennett.

However, he has not spoken about a political union with either, and “they were not connected in any way to this process,” he asserted, adding that he wants “to lead a process that will bring together all the democratic Zionist parties.”

A source with knowledge of the matter told The Times of Israel on Tuesday that Eisenkot and Lapid are in contact but denied that there was any agreement between the two, dismissing a report by the Ynet news site that Lapid had offered Eisenkot the leadership of his party for the next election.

Another source privy to Bennett’s thinking similarly denied that Bennett was behind Kahana’s resignation, asserting that with Eisenkot having left National Unity, Kahana has little chance of making the party’s list for the next election.

“The minute that Gadi left, that made it really a matter of time for when Matan was going to go,” the source stated.

Asked by The Times of Israel if he intended to establish his own party, Eisenkot hedged, merely stating that “the goal is to replace this bad government and establish a Zionist, patriotic, statesmanlike, democratic alternative” and that he “will do whatever it takes to achieve the goal.”

Asked if he sees himself as fit to serve as prime minister, Eisenkot replied that he believed he “can fill any role in the State of Israel.”

Following Eisenkot and Kahana’s resignation, the National Unity party announced that it would revert to the original name of Gantz’s faction — Blue and White.

The rebranded party will begin a new advertising campaign focused on “the need for agreements and unity between all parts of Israeli society” and will feature the tagline “Israel is moving toward agreements.”

“We are continuing the journey we have been on from day one — to connect and unite the entirety of Israeli society. Especially now, after the tragedy of the October 7 attack, after [wars against] Hezbollah and Iran — it is time to move toward agreements and heal the wounds. No more camps, we are all blue and white,” Gantz said in a statement.

According to a Channel 12 poll published on Tuesday evening, if elections were held today, Blue and White would receive six out of 120 Knesset seats while Likud would get 26 and Bennett’s new party 24. If Eisenkot were to establish his own party, it would win eight seats.

Were Eisenkot to replace Lapid at the head of Yesh Atid, the party would receive 18 seats, and if he joined Bennett, they would together receive 32 seats, making their party the largest in the Knesset.

Eisenkot and Kahana are set to be replaced in the Knesset by Eitan Ginsburg and Yael Ron Ben-Moshe.

You appreciate our journalism

Join Our Community

Join Our Community

Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this