When Gadi Eisenkot took the podium at his new party’s official launch event last week, his message came through not just in what he said, but how he said it.

Eisenkot is the latest in a long line of contenders aiming to depose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has led Israel nearly uninterrupted since 2009. But unlike with some of those other challengers, the contrast between the premier and his opponent was apparent from the start.

Netanyahu is the consummate orator, most at home in the spotlight. He’s (almost) always clad in suit and tie. He knows when to crescendo his voice and when to pause for effect. He knows how to get the audience to clap. He knows when to joke, when to exhort, when to warn. He has no problem mentioning his brother’s death in battle to make a point. Sometimes he brings props.

Not so Eisenkot. When the former IDF chief of staff walked onstage, he seemed like… a former IDF chief of staff. He didn’t so much as wave to the crowd that had assembled to hear him. And when he launched into his speech, it was mostly in monotone, with few rises and falls, and with the gruff candidate looking directly at the crowd, unassumingly, in a suit with an open collar. He famously lost his son and two nephews in battle following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack — but didn’t directly mention them once. He also didn’t mention Netanyahu by name.

“We will open a new and much better chapter in Israel’s history. We will write it together,” he said. “The leadership is using the term ‘national unity’ as a cynical election campaign. I will do everything to unify the nation.”

Eisenkot is pitching a new era in Israeli government, presenting himself as an alternative not just to Netanyahu, but also to Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, who join him in opposing the premier. Their platforms are closer to Eisenkot’s, but their image and style — polished, poll-tested, fluent in English, comfortable on camera — is thoroughly a product of the Netanyahu era.

Embodied in Eisenkot’s persona and biography is a wager that his country is ready not just for a different policy, but for a different kind of politician. The question is whether a plainspoken candidate running for prime minister for the first time can make it through a brutal campaign — especially versus a longtime leader with a singular talent for winning elections who’s fighting desperately for his political life.

“Gadi projects everything Netanyahu is not,” Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told The Times of Israel.

“He projects authenticity, he projects a spine,” Talshir added. “People see Gadi as a responsible figure who will work on behalf of the country’s security. He doesn’t sparkle, he doesn’t have the flash, he doesn’t have the rhetorical ability, he doesn’t have Netanyahu’s political shrewdness.”

Netanyahu — along with his surrogates in the media — argue that Eisenkot lacks the gumption necessary to lead Israel at such a critical moment. Some portray him as merely the latest frontman for an out-of-touch elite straining to keep its grasp on power.

But as Eisenkot rises in the polls, a consensus is forming: He’s the guy who will face off with the prime minister at the ballot box.

“Netanyahu already knows who his main rival will be in the elections,” wrote Amit Segal, a Channel 12 political commentator with close ties to the prime minister’s camp. “It’s Netanyahu versus Eisenkot, and Eisenkot versus Netanyahu.”

Netanyahu’s lines of attack

Netanyahu has been experimenting in real time with lines of attack against Eisenkot, and so far, two have emerged: That he’ll be beholden to Arab politicians, and that he’ll be timid in the face of existential threats.

Netanyahu has worked to delegitimize Israel’s Arab political parties for more than a decade, and is using the Arabs as a cudgel against Eisenkot. His social media feed is filled with attack ad after attack ad juxtaposing Eisenkot’s photo next to the face of Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas, who joined with an anti-Netanyahu coalition in 2021 to briefly unseat the prime minister.

The slogan “Eisenkot has no government without the Arab parties” is becoming a mainstay.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid (right) and former prime minister Naftali Bennett at a press conference announcing their joint run in the coming elections, in Herzliya, central Israel, April 26, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Eisenkot, indeed, has not ruled out working with Arab parties to secure a majority in the Knesset, but the negative campaign also serves Netanyahu’s electoral math: Among the Knesset’s Jewish parties, the pro-Netanyahu bloc consistently trails the anti-Netanyahu parties, but both are shy of a 61-seat majority. The balance is held by Arab parties.

If Netanyahu can convince Israel’s electorate that cooperation of any kind with them is anathema, it could leave his opponents unable to form a coalition in a deadlocked Knesset — and keep him in power in the interim.

“Netanyahu needs a preventative bloc that will ensure that the liberal camp [opposing him] can’t form a........

© The Times of Israel