Gadi Eisenkot: What to know about the main challenger to Netanyahu in Israel’s elections

Key Points:

• Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israeli military chief of staff and son of Moroccan immigrants, has emerged as the leading opposition candidate to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s October 27 election, appealing partly due to his Mizrahi heritage and outsider background.
• Eisenkot’s campaign emphasizes domestic accountability, including a state inquiry into the October 7 Hamas attack, and military conscription reforms, while maintaining hawkish security policies similar to Netanyahu’s, but criticizing Netanyahu’s war management.
• Despite polling well, Eisenkot faces challenges forming a coalition government in Israel’s fragmented political system, with potential reliance on Arab parties and centrists, complicating traditional bloc politics and Netanyahu’s long-standing delegitimization of Arab party cooperation.
• Eisenkot opposes formal annexation of West Bank territories and settler violence, rejects the two-state solution as unrealistic post-October 7, and pledges to end Hamas rule in Gaza, signaling a hardline but somewhat pragmatic approach to Palestinian issues.
• U.S. former President Donald Trump has endorsed Netanyahu and expressed skepticism about working with Eisenkot, though a government led by Eisenkot without far-right partners might facilitate more moderate regional diplomacy and advance Saudi normalization efforts.