As Israel approaches the October 27, 2026 elections, Gadi Eisenkot possesses an advantage that few of his rivals can match: he is reassuring.

A former IDF chief of staff, sober in manner and largely averse to political theatrics and grandstanding, he projects a down-to-earth decency that naturally inspires sympathy and trust. Added to this is a family tragedy that has deeply touched Israelis: his son Gal was killed in Gaza in December 2023, his nephew Maor Cohen Eisenkot the following day, and another nephew, Yogev Pazy, in November 2024.

Such personal loss, combined with a lifetime of service to the country, commands respect.

But an election is not a contest of personal virtues. Israel will be choosing a prime minister. It is therefore necessary to look beyond the reassuring man and examine the doctrine he represents.

When several episodes from Eisenkot’s career are considered together, a pattern emerges: he has often seemed to approach Israel’s security primarily in terms of managing, limiting and accommodating threats rather than fundamentally altering the balance of power.

What may be presented as realism can, under certain circumstances, become a doctrine of resignation. And that is where the problem begins.

The gamble of a smaller army

The first issue concerns Eisenkot’s tenure as IDF chief of staff from 2015 to 2019.

The multi-year Gideon Plan reduced personnel, restructured units and significantly cut the number of reservists as part of a concept favoring a smaller, more technological and more precise military.

It was during this period that reserve Maj.-Gen. Yitzhak Brik issued some of his gravest warnings. He criticized the state of logistics, emergency stockpiles, maintenance, technical manpower and, above all, the actual ability of Israel’s ground forces to sustain a prolonged war.

Eisenkot challenged Brik’s assessment and had his findings examined by an internal committee. Brik, for his part, argued that the General Staff was refusing to confront the army’s true condition.

After October 7, that controversy inevitably takes on a different significance.

Brik may not have been right about everything, and Eisenkot cannot be held solely responsible for a doctrine that had developed over many years throughout Israel’s security establishment. Yet the question remains: did he contribute to building an army that was too small and too dependent on intelligence, technology and air power to cope with a prolonged regional war?

The gamble on economic moderation

Even more revealing is Eisenkot’s approach to relations with the Palestinians.

At the height of a terrorist wave in 2016, Eisenkot was already defending the employment in Israel of some 120,000 Palestinians from Judea and Samaria. His reasoning was explicit: their salaries supported several hundred thousand people and therefore constituted, in his view, a moderating factor.

He later argued that allowing roughly 150,000 Palestinian workers into Israel helped........

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