Looking at the Israeli polling data, it looks like Eisenkot has a decent chance. It's not a sure thing by any means, but it's a decent chance. Of course nothing is a sure thing and as long as neither party wins a majority (which seems unlikely), either would need a coalition government.

Eisenkot is a right winger and his policies aren't radically different than Netanyahu's, but under an Eisenkot government there would be some true opportunities:

1. Not beholden to the far right. - Much of what we see out of Israel in terms of extreme statements and policies come not even out of Likud, but the extreme right wing parties. Under Eisenkot, this would not be the case.

2. Not Netanyahu - This alone could help Israel internationally. Even if the
I'm hopeful that with Eisenkot that Israel will have a few chances to heal its international image, albeit slowly.

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#Israel #IlPol #Netanyahu #Eisenkot

Israel has mostly a single political arena: the national, with a parliament of a single house, the Knesset. It has 120 seats. Elections are proportional representation, that is: parties set lists of candidates and citizens elect those lists.

There are currently two major blocks of parties: current coalition: supporters of Netanyahu. They currently hold 68/120 seats, however polls[1] predict that they'll have around 50/120 seats and not hold a majority. I'm not part of this block.

(There are potentially some parties that try to live in the space between the blocks. Their fate is not clear right now. I hope they'll eventually fade away, but currently this is just my hope. I'm not there)

The other major block is the opposition to Netanyahu. I'll try to give a brief picture of its composition.

Current polls predict currently a total of some 10/120 to the so-called "Arab" parties. This designates two or more parties. One of them (United Aram List, not to be confused with a potential Joint List) may be in the future coalition, other(s) are not likely. Parties in this space may yet join. The number of votes they get also depends on the turn up rates in the Arab population that is currently unpredictable. But I'm not part of that sub-block, So let's zoom in elsewhere.

Now we are left with the main opposition block. Currently four parties that are likely to form the next coalition. The two larger ones, with currently predicted more than 15/120 seats, are Yashar ("straight"), headed by Gadi Eisenkot, and Together, headed by Naftali Bennett. Both are new parties that are now mostly forming their organizations. Hopefully they'll manage to stick together. I'm not there.

To their right is Yisrael Beiteinu ("Israel our home") of Avigdor Liberman) that is somewhat fascist, but devout secular and will stick with some of the liberal values. Polls predict roughly 10/120. I'm not there.

And finally we get to where I am: The Democrats. The left-most part of that block. Polls predict some 10/120. We need to work to get more than that. Currently only party of the four that has set peace and end of conflict as a goal.

[1] Polls are always something to be taken with a grain of salt. Results of polls has been quite stable since the early days of the government about the composition of the major blocks. The content of them changed and I tend to trust those numbers less.

#ilpol #IsraeliElections2026

Elections in Israel are nationwide and proportional representation - parties present their list of candidates and each voter may elect a single party (technically it's a list, which is a combination of parties, but never mind that). And no registration is required.

Up until the 1970s, party leaders chose those lists of candidates through committees - "the elders of the party". In 1977 the #Likkud started electing people in party conferences. A while later other parties followed suit. In 1991 the Labor decided to use an even wider body: primary elections. In both cases the new format helped the party win the elections as the older method seemed corrupt.

Primary elections became the norm. Then Tommy Lapid (the father of Yair Lapid) became disenchanted with that idea after it helped kicking hime out of "his" Shinuy party in 2006 in an ugly way. This prompted Yair Lapid to avoid it altogether. Yair Lapid created his own new party in 2012 (Yesh Atid), with himself as the big party boss. And from that point, new parties tended to be "owned" by the figure that headed the party and called the shots.

In previous elections only Labor and Meretz (sort of) on the left and Likkud on the right stuck to holding primary elections. Meretz and Labor merged to forming The Democrats that will hold the primary elections for the list in July 20th.

The primary elections in the Likkud have an aura of corruption around them: workers in various large companies are "strongly encouraged" to join the party. Likewise various political movements, notably from the religious far right (often people who actually don't vote Likkud) will join the party to vote in the primary elections.

On the other hand, primary elections remain a useful channel to keep party leadership accountable to local activists. E.g. recently farmers (including ones supported by Likkud) managed to thwart a suggested milk reform (That was probably badly designed anyway).

However, Netanyahu is not so fond of those primary elections, as it means that there are people noot directly depending on him, and currently trying to select less list members in primary elections.

That is certainly not the case with the Democrats.

I'll note that there was at least one more small party that selected its list through what is described as primary elections: the Reservists (Miluimnikim), that currently fail to pass the voting threshold in polls.

#PrimaryElections #ilpol

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