Netanyahu’s main challenger accuses Israeli PM of prioritising survival over security

Gadi Eisenkot, the main challenger to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accused the sitting premier of looking merely after his own political survival and not the country’s security at a rally in central Israel on Monday.

Unveiling the candidates of the Yashar party for the October 27 election, the former military commander said nothing about how he would handle the Palestinian question or the wars against Iran and Lebanon launched by Netanyahu, but accused him of ducking responsibility in the nearly three years since the massive Hamas attack.

A relative newcomer to politics, his party Yashar (Hebrew for “Upright”), founded a year ago, has surged in the polls in recent months, with many voters seeing him as a viable candidate to replace Netanyahu, thanks to his military background.

At Monday’s rally in a hall in the central Israeli city of Rosh Haayin, Eisenkot vowed to put an end to the divisions that have plagued the country since October 7, 2023 over Netanyahu’s conduct of the war in Gaza, where dozens of Israeli hostages were held, and on other fronts.

“In the face of the great rift that opened on October 7, and in the face of the immense challenges before the State of Israel, I believe we need a leadership that knows how to rise to the magnitude of the hour, that knows how to unite and bring unity around what we share, and to fundamentally restore the principles of stateliness and Zionism,” Eisenkot said.

Eisenkot also touched on other hot-button issues in the coming election, such as the exemptions and benefits granted to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men.

“Will we go on for more years under a government that promotes evasion of duty without shame? A government that hands out billions of shekels to those who neither serve nor work?” he said.