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Kudos to Gadi Eisenkot. The former chief of staff of the Israel Armed Forces may not be a household name in the United States . . . yet, but he may well be one of the faces of Israel's future.
Eisenkot is a member of Benny Gantz's National Unity party that crossed over from the opposition to join a short-term emergency war government in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 pogrom perpetrated by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups against Israeli civilians. He sits as an observer in the small war cabinet together with Gantz, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (both from the ruling Likud party), and fellow observers Ron Dermer, minister of strategic affairs (also from the Likud and, depending on one's point of view, a Netanyahu confidant or a Netanyahu operative), and Aryeh Deri, the head of the ultra-orthodox Shas party.
Yesterday, after Netanyahu voiced his unalterable opposition to both new elections and any future Palestinian state, Eisenkot had had enough. "It is necessary, within a period of months, to return the Israeli voter to the polls and hold elections in order to renew trust because right now there is no trust," he said in a television interview only hours after Netanyahu had declared that "going to elections would be irresponsible and would badly halt the war effort."
Eisenkot also put the lie to Netanyahu's boast that the war was going well and that "complete victory" over Hamas was achievable. "Whoever speaks of absolute defeat is not speaking the truth," Eisenkot said pointedly, adding that, "Today, the situation already in the Gaza Strip is such that the goals of the war have not yet been achieved."
Eisenkot is not just a highly respected general who led the Israel Armed Forces with distinction from 2015 until 2019. He is also the father and uncle of Israeli soldiers killed in the present Israel-Hamas war. Both he and Gantz have also identified publicly with the families of the hostages still held captive in Gaza by Hamas.
The significance of Eisenkot's public repudiation of Netanyahu's hardline stance cannot be underrated. He has laid bare the stark and, to many if not most Israelis, terrifying reality that Netanyahu's true goal is to stay in power as long as he can, regardless of the consequences, even if that means prolonging the war and antagonizing Israel's staunchest allies, that is, President Biden and the United States.
It is no secret that Netanyahu is gambling on Biden's defeat in the upcoming U.S. presidential elections and that a future Trump administration would be more sympathetic to Netanyahu's rejection of Palestinian statehood in any form whatsoever. Netanyahu's single-minded goal, therefore, is to remain prime minister until then. His problem—ok, one of his many problems—is that most Israelis want him gone long before then.
Gantz, Eisenkot's predecessor as IDF chief of staff and a former Israeli defense minister, is widely perceived as the most likely alternative to Netanyahu. A political centrist, he commands broad-based respect, as does Eisenkot, for that matter.
Gantz and Eisenkot are also viewed as staunch supporters of Israel's democratic traditions, in contrast to Netanyahu whose efforts to scuttle the independence of Israel's judiciary encountered stiff popular resistance. Gantz and Eisenkot are also seen as bulwarks against ultranationalist extremists such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and Justice Minister Yariv Levin who dictate the present government's far-right policies.
As I have written previously, the argument that nations do not change leaders in the middle of a war is bogus. The British and French did so numerous times during World War I, and the Brits famously replaced Neville Chamberlain with Winston Churchill eight months after the outbreak of World War II.
Eisenkot has just provided the majority of Israelis—according to some polls, up to 85 percent—who would like to see Netanyahu and his acolytes in their political rear view mirror with an off ramp. I am certain that he gave his television interview yesterday with Gantz's approval, and is daring Netanyahu to do something about it
Netanyahu, who is in the midst of several criminal prosecutions, prefers the prime minister's office to a possible jail cell.
There are indications that Deri, perhaps the canniest Israeli political operator, is becoming increasingly more sympathetic to Gantz and Eisenkot's moderate and pragmatic inclinations than to Netanyahu's attempt to maintain a self-serving stranglehold over Israel's future. If Deri were now to join forces with Gantz and Eisenkot, it could well be game over for Netanyahu.
Menachem Z. Rosensaft is adjunct professor of law at Cornell University where he teaches courses on the law of genocide and on antisemitism in the courts and in jurisprudence. He is the author of Poems Born in Bergen-Belsen (Kelsay Books, 2021).
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
