Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot on Thursday sharply criticized fellow opposition party leaders Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman, accusing them of engaging in “old politics” and harming the bloc’s chances of winning the October 27.

Speaking to Kan’s Reshet Bet radio, Eisenkot said Bennett and Liberman were making a mistake by refusing to commit to principles for choosing who would lead a prospective government formed by the four main Zionist opposition parties.

“They are hurting the chances of winning,” Eisenkot said.

Yashar is currently the clear frontrunner within the bloc, consistently polling as its largest party and significantly ahead of both Bennett’s B’Yachad and Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu. Eisenkot has argued that the leader of the largest party in the bloc should be its candidate for prime minister, while Bennett and Liberman have not committed to backing the largest party’s leader.

“Anyone counting on becoming prime minister with eight seats doesn’t understand what has happened in the State of Israel,” Eisenkot said, in an apparent jab at both. Bennett became prime minister in 2021 despite his party winning just six seats in that year’s election. Liberman has been polling at around 7-9 seats.

“This old politics of ‘we’ll pull tricks and decide who will be prime minister’ — that’s something that can’t be accepted,” he added.

Yisrael Beytenu hit back, saying that “Avigdor Liberman has no ego, and he has experience,” and reiterating that its priority was maximizing the number of seats won by the bloc as a whole.

The party said it was committed to forming a government without Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Arab parties or Haredi parties. It challenged Eisenkot to clarify his own prospective coalition partners: “Gadi Eisenkot would do well to make clear to the public who his partners will be the day after the election.”

Eisenkot has made overtures toward the Haredi Shas party and........

© The Times of Israel