Israel's Netanyahu faces election challenge from hawkish ex-general

TEL AVIV, June 26 - Israel's former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, who lost a son in Gaza and boasts of his "Dahiyeh doctrine" of smashing foes with disproportionate force, is surging in polls and could oust Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister in a coming election.

Eisenkot, 66, has projected an image as a political outsider, soldier and security hawk whose humble background and family sacrifices stand in vivid contrast to Netanyahu's decades in high office and lingering corruption cases.

As Israelis prepare to vote for the first time since the trauma of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack and the devastating but inconclusive wars Israel then waged in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, polls show many voters turning against the incumbents.

Eisenkot's new Yashar political party is on course to come second to Netanyahu's Likud in parliament seats with both far short of a majority, Israeli polls suggest.

But Yashar - a Hebrew word meaning straight or honest - may be better placed than Likud to form a governing coalition by working with a broader range of parties across Israel's political spectrum.

No date has been set for the election, which is due to be held by late October, and in Israel's parliamentary system the results are hard to predict. Another party led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett is also in the frame.

HAWKISH APPROACH ON SECURITY

An Eisenkot victory might not lead to any major softening of a hawkish Israeli regional policy that has outraged Western critics of Netanyahu and contributed to Israel's sinking popularity in the United States, its main ally.

Briefly a member of the war cabinet overseeing the Gaza war, he has attacked Netanyahu for bowing too readily to U.S. demands for a ceasefire in Lebanon to settle the Iran conflict. He calls demands for a Palestinian state "irrelevant".

As a commander during the 2006 war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, Eisenkot pioneered a deterrent strategy of responding to attacks by militant groups with overwhelming destruction, even of civilian infrastructure, in areas they use.

The approach was rolled out with the heavy bombardment of Beirut's Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs that are a Hezbollah stronghold. At a conference this week, he said he had implemented that "Dahiyeh doctrine" with what he himself called "disproportionate strikes".

He added that the military should be free to attack Hezbollah anywhere in Lebanon and that the ceasefire demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump had created an "insane reality" tying the hands of Israeli forces.

That uncompromising stance on the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, along with his criticism of Netanyahu's overall strategy and handling of Trump, are popular in Israel despite the costs to the country's position with critical Western allies.

HUMBLE BACKGROUND AND FAMILY SACRIFICE RESONATE WITH VOTERS

A son of Moroccan immigrants, Eisenkot is making inroads among voters of Middle Eastern and North African Jewish, or Mizrahi, descent, a sometimes disadvantaged group in Israeli society that has formed a core voter base for Netanyahu.

Rising through the ranks of the Israel Defense Forces, in which most citizens are required to do service, he was a leading commander in the 2006 Hezbollah war rising to chief of staff from 2015 to 2019.

That family background and long military experience gave Eisenkot the kind of security credentials revered by Israelis even before his son, Gal Meir, 25, was killed serving in Gaza in December 2023. Two of his nephews were also killed in the war.

Those losses have resonated with Israelis after nearly three years of conflict in which hundreds of their soldiers have been killed.

"He comes across as a genuine person," said Eitan Shamir, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. "He's very likable, not a politician, an everyday person, someone that can be your neighbor or coworker. He's not too sophisticated. People feel they can relate to him."

Netanyahu's camp have used those qualities to question whether Eisenkot has the fluent English skills needed to uphold the country's critical ties with Western allies.

In a political milieu that has tilted ever further right in recent decades, he is seen as a centrist, open to entering a coalition with leftist parties and in favour of conscripting both Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews into the army with only limited exemptions.

He entered politics only four years ago, winning a parliament seat in 2022 as an independent and after the October 7 attack he joined the war cabinet for eight months before quitting, criticising Netanyahu's leadership.

His new party is entering the election run-up with plenty of momentum after rising in the polls over recent weeks.

But Tamar Hermann, an Israeli political scientist and senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, said Netanyahu could still manage a comeback.

"Netanyahu in a way is like a political Houdini, he manages in a way to get out of unfathomable corners," Hermann said. REUTERS