Lately there is an interesting propaganda campaign regarding the origin of Israeli opposition party leader Gadi Eisenkot, to try to prove he's not a such a popular guy, and that Netanyahu is better.

Eisenkot is the leader of one of the opposition parties that will run in the upcoming October 2026 general elections in Israel. According to recent polls, his party will likely lead the block of opposition parties and he has a good chance of becoming the next Israeli prime minister.

He had a long military career and eventually served as the chief of staff on 2015-2018. Later has been in the Knesset (parliament) since 2022.

As you can see in his biography, he was born in the city of Tiberias to parents who immigrated from Morocco. That would mark him as Sefaradi. But the "Eisen" prefix sounds German and hence Ashkenazi. Around 2015, as he became the chief of staff, this appeared to be an oddity, and people looked into it.

They quickly realized that the name may appear German, but is not really, and such a name is not documented. However, the name Azankot, that seems to be of Berber origin, is documented for Jews in Morocco since the 17th century. At some point someone mis-transcribed the name.

So around 2015 there are multiple stories about that. A harmless anecdote.

And we get to the present times. Netanyahu is a populist leader. That is, also claims to be leader of the people. For various reasons, Sepharadi people (roughly half of the Jewish population) vote more to the Right. But Netanyahu's party, Likkud, has always been under the leadership of Ashkenazy people. And yet, they somehow keep trying to use this as an issue.

So lately we see both Netanyahu's propaganda raising the following two points: that Netanyahu is of partial Moroccan decent (with no basis whatsoever), and that Eisenkot (due to the name) is not really a Moroccan.

Note: This is obviously something that should not have mattered. Eisenkot does not make that identity a campaign topic. But it's interesting to see what issues the propaganda of Netanyahu chooses to pick on.

#israel #Eisenkut #GadiEizenkut #ilpol #netanyahu #propaganda