Gadi Eisenkot, a former head of Israel’s armed forces, has emerged as the main challenger to Benjamin Netanyahu in upcoming elections that could end the premiership of the country’s longest-serving leader.
Polls indicate that Eisenkot’s new party Yashar — Hebrew for “straightforward” or honest” — will get slightly more seats than Netanyahu’s Likud in the Oct. 27 vote, which would give him the right to try and form a coalition government. Stocky and somber, untested in domestic politics and a stranger to foreign-policy circles, the 66-year-old ex-general represents a stark contrast to the articulate and telegenic Netanyahu, in style if not so much in policy.
The ballot will double as a verdict on Netanyahu, 76, whose most recent term has been punctuated by near constant war, corruption cases, constitutional feuding and the growing isolation of Israel on the global stage.
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