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Israeli President Isaac Herzog has said that he has handed over the responsibility of forming a new coalition government to opposition coalition leader Gadi Eisencott.
Eisencott, a former Israeli army chief, is posing an unexpected challenge to Netanyahu, who has led Israel for most of the last three decades.
Eisencott is new to politics. He formally entered politics in 2022.
He became a member of the Israeli Parliament from the National Unity Party. Later he left the party. He said that he had ideological differences with the party.
Last year, he separated from prominent opposition leaders and formed his own centrist party 'Yashar'. 'Yashar' means 'straight' or 'honest'.
After this, Eisencott became Netanyahu's biggest rival in the electoral contest.
Netanyahu's biggest rivals
In this election, Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party and its far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies won 53 seats in the 120-seat parliament, while Eizenkot's centrist Yashar party and the three other Jewish opposition parties in their coalition won 48 seats.
In recent years, Netanyahu has been surrounded by corruption allegations. He denies these allegations.
His way of dealing with the attacks of October 7, 2023 has also been criticized. Apart from this, his controversial plan for major changes in the judiciary had led to major protests in the country.
But there is also a personal tragedy behind Eisencott's decision to run against Netanyahu.
Son's death and closed boxes kept in the house
Master Sergeant Gal Aizencott, the youngest of Gadi Aizencott's five children, was killed in an explosion in northern Gaza in December 2023.
On October 7, he had gone on a mission to search for the remains of two Israelis held hostage by Hamas.
Gadi Aizencott says he has not yet seen his son's belongings, which were handed over to him in two boxes.
These boxes are kept at his home in Herzliya, a prosperous seaside city north of Tel Aviv.
"I haven't opened them yet. I keep putting it off," Eisencott, 66, told Israel's state radio Kan Reshet Bet in April.
Along with his son, two nephews also died in the Gaza campaign.
This personal loss and the realization that the Netanyahu government had failed to stop Hamas's unprecedented attacks further strengthened his political ambitions.
Eisencott told The Times of Israel, "I can't turn back time. I will do everything I can to be worthy of the heavy price Gaal has paid."
Intention to hold Netanyahu accountable
Image source, MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images
Holding Netanyahu and his cabinet accountable is among Aizencott's priorities.
Eisencott joined Prime Minister Netanyahu's war cabinet along with some other opposition leaders in a show of national unity after the October 7 attacks.
But in June 2024 he resigned from the war cabinet.
He accused Netanyahu of not taking steps quickly enough to free the people held hostage by Hamas.
"Under his regime, women and children were kidnapped, and he deliberately did not do what was necessary to get them out," Eisencott told The Times of Israel.
Netanyahu has rejected this claim several times.
Netanyahu says that while in the war cabinet, Eizenkot had opposed some important military actions in Gaza.
According to him, adopting Aizencott's strategy does not weaken Hamas.
"I remember what Gadi Eisencott and others said when we were in Gaza," Netanyahu said during a press conference in June.
"They said we should just make a deal, get the hostages out and get out of Gaza, all of Gaza."
According to The Times of Israel, Netanyahu said that if this strategy had been adopted, "the whole of Hamas" and its top officials killed by Israel during the war "would still be there today, alive and under control."
In a recent interview given to the news website 'Ynet News', Eisencott rejected Netanyahu's claim.
He asked the Prime Minister to place before the public the records of the War Cabinet meetings and the voting held in them.
A few days before the election, Aizencott promised that if elected, he would end Hamas rule within 18 months.
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What are Aizencott's priorities?
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Nadav Eyal is among Israel's leading journalists. He is also an academician and has been following Eisencott's political journey.
He says the personal loss has given Eisencott "a sense of purpose and mission."
According to Eyal, this mission is not just that Eizenkot's Yashar Party should gain enough seats in the Israeli Parliament to form a coalition to oust the current Prime Minister.
Like Netanyahu, Eisencott also believes that Hamas should not find a place in any plan for the future of Gaza.
"It is very important to understand that his son was killed by Hamas in a war that was started by Hamas," Eyal told the BBC.
Eisencott also did not support the two-state solution. This solution calls for recognizing a Palestinian state along with Israel.
According to Israeli media, in late August Eisencott said that those who still believe in this possibility are "living in an illusion."
However, he has said he wants to "reset" Israel's relations with the Palestinian Authority.
"The Palestinian Authority should be allowed to rule the 2.8 million Palestinians who live in the occupied West Bank. I don't want to rule them," Eisencott told The Times of Israel in October.
What is your stance on Jewish settlements?
Eisencott supports the expansion of large Israeli settlement groups. However, their condition is that this expansion should be in accordance with Israeli law and the interests of the country.
Along with this, he has opposed the controversial plans to increase the presence of Jewish residents in some areas of the West Bank.
They particularly opposed plans to expand a settlement in the area east of Jerusalem known as E1.
It seems that the negative reaction of the international community is also a reason behind their objections.
Recently he promised to "drive Jewish terrorists out of Judea and Samaria."
Israel uses the name 'Judea and Samaria' for the occupied West Bank.
Promise to investigate October 7 attacks
Eisencott promised during the election campaign that he would investigate the October 7 attacks. In this investigation, it will be found out where the Israeli government made mistakes.
Major Israeli media outlets have published allegations that UAE and Egyptian officials had warned Netanyahu about a possible attack from Gaza.
Netanyahu denies these allegations.
He sued the Israeli newspaper that first published this claim.
Netanyahu has also consistently opposed any government investigation led by Israel's Supreme Court. Their argument is that the judiciary will be biased against them.
"This is a choice between accepting responsibility and running away from responsibility," says Eisencott.
Plan to stop skilled people leaving the country
Eisencott has promised to introduce an emergency plan in his 10-point programme.
Through this, he wants to deal with the problem of highly skilled Israelis leaving the country in large numbers and encourage new immigrants to come to Israel.
Eisencott also wants to end exemptions from military service for ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities and Arab Israelis.
"We will do one more thing," he told The Times of Israel. "An equal service law will be passed for all Israeli citizens."
"Under this, military, national or civilian service will have to be done. This will also include national service for Arab citizens."
Even before this, efforts have been made to expand the scope of compulsory military service. The Netanyahu government had also made such an attempt.
But ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities protested against these efforts.
Eisencott came from an ordinary family
Gadi Aizencott was born in Tiberias and raised in Eilat.
Both of these cities are far away from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the main centers of political power in Israel.
Aizencott's parents were immigrants from Morocco. He was from a family of ordinary economic circumstances and had come and settled in Israel in the 1950s.
Jewish communities who came from the Middle East and North African countries are called 'Mizrahi'.
Till now no person from the Mizrahi community has become the Prime Minister of Israel. However, leaders of this community have tried to become Prime Minister earlier also.
David Remnick, editor of 'The New Yorker', spent time with Eisencott during the election campaign.
He says Eisencott challenges Netanyahu's identity as a supporter of communities considered marginalized in Israeli society, such as the Mizrahi.
Netanyahu is a descendant of Jewish immigrants to Israel from Eastern Europe and grew up in an affluent neighborhood of Jerusalem. Therefore, his image as a leader of the deprived people does not seem to match this background.
According to Israeli media reports, the Mizrahi community, which historically supports the Likud party, often uses the Moroccan Arabic word 'Diyalina' for Aizenkot.
'Diyalina' means "one of us."
"My parents came from Morocco. I'm proud of them and my roots," Eisencott told TV network Channel 13 earlier this year.
"But first of all I would be happy for us to be proud of our Israeli identity."
40 years journey in army
Image source, JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images
Eisencott joined the Israeli army at the age of 18.
He served in the army for 40 years and rose through different ranks to become the Army Chief. He held this post from 2015 to 2019.
He was in charge of Israeli forces in the West Bank during the second intifada in the 2000s.
The second intifada was a Palestinian rebellion that lasted more than four years.
During this period, about one thousand Israelis and more than three thousand Palestinians were killed.
Later Aizencott's name was associated with 'Dahiya Theory'.
This doctrine advocates the use of excessive military force against civilian structures in areas from which Israel feels it is being attacked.
It is also worth noting that despite criticizing Netanyahu so much, Eisencott never opposed Israel's military action in response to the October 7 attacks.
Nearly 1,200 people were killed and 251 people were taken hostage in the Hamas-led attack.
In response, Israel started a military operation in Gaza.
According to Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry, more than 74,200 people have been killed in this campaign. The United Nations considers these figures reliable.
"We were forced to defend ourselves," Eisencott told The Times of Israel. "We have to look honestly at where it started."
What do critics say about Eisencott?
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Journalist and broadcaster Mehdi Hasan wrote in the British newspaper 'The Guardian' that "Eisenkot is not Netanyahu."
But according to him, Aizencott would also "allow the same policies of expansion and destruction in the West Bank and Gaza to continue."
Anshel Pfeffer, Israel correspondent for The Economist magazine and author of Netanyahu's biography, says Eisencott is "not a pacifist."
"But he also has the reputation of a serious person," Pfeffer told the BBC.
"So far, he has not been making big or absurd promises in the election campaign. Apart from this, he does not come from any influential or elite family. Therefore, it is very difficult to tarnish his image."
According to Pfeffer, Eisencott's emergence as a direct challenger to Netanyahu was a bit unexpected.
He says, "Till six months ago, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was considered the most likely rival to Netanyahu."
"But Eisencott appears to have struck a chord with voters at just the right time."
Eisencott is often called 'the opposite of Netanyahu'.
He does not try to remain in the news and is not considered a very good political speaker.
Nadav Eyal believes that Eisencott probably did not even like being a politician.
Will Israel's relations with the world improve?
Can Eisencott becoming Prime Minister improve the deteriorated relations between Israel and the international community?
Professor Yossi Mekelberg, an Israeli expert on international relations at the British think tank Chatham House, told the BBC that this was likely to happen.
But such a change should not be expected to happen overnight.
He said that merely replacing Netanyahu with another leader does not guarantee that goodwill will be shown by Israel.
Professor Mekelberg says, "I don't think any opposition party, including Eisencott's party, offers a clear alternative to Netanyahu."
Published by Collective Newsroom for the BBC.
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