On Tuesday night more than 300 people packed an auditorium to hear Gadi Eisenkot make his case in person. He took more questions than his handlers had planned for, and answered them straight.

The banner at the entrance said it before anyone had taken a seat. Three words in white Hebrew sat above a portrait of a man in a dark shirt with the flag behind him: Lohem! Manhig! Me’ached! Fighter. Leader. Unifier.

Inside, the auditorium in Ramat HaSharon filled fast. More than 300 people took every seat, then the aisles, then the back wall. There were retirees who remember when chiefs of staff were national figures, not partisan targets, and reservists who have spent three years in and out of uniform. A man in a knitted kippah sat a few rows from volunteers in black Yashar! T-shirts.

A packed house rises as Eisenkot enters, with press photographers at the foot of the stage.

When Gadi Eisenkot came down the steps into the hall, people stood. Phones went up. The applause lacked the manufactured roar of a rally. It sounded like people who had been waiting for this.

The popular image of Eisenkot is the soldier’s soldier: gruff, understated, more at home in a briefing room than on a stage. That image undersells him badly. His charisma is the Gary Cooper kind. He doesn’t raise his voice or reach for applause lines. He stands tall, speaks plainly, and the room comes to him. He radiated confidence and a complete command of the issues.

He spoke about leadership and morals, and said flatly that the current government has neither and has to be replaced. He took on the Netanyahu bloc’s favorite claim, that Israel has defeated Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Those fronts, and others, are still active. Declaring victory over enemies still firing at you is a weak argument, and he treated it as one.

He also had a number many in the room hadn’t heard.........

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