{"id":239673,"date":"2026-08-07T10:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T10:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/239673\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T10:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T10:23:09","slug":"why-gadi-eisenkot-should-lead-israels-opposition-into-the-next-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/239673\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Gadi Eisenkot should lead Israel’s opposition into the next election"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fielding four aspiring prime ministers, the opposition\u2019s leaders will have to crown Gadi Eisenkot<\/a> as their joint candidate. Not because he is better equipped to govern, but because he is better equipped to win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, polls are tricky, but the gap Eisenkot has opened, suggesting he is nearly twice as popular as Naftali Bennett, will become unambiguous if sustained for another month.<\/p>\n

Conceding this will not come easily for the other three.<\/p>\n

For B\u2019Yachad candidate Naftali Bennett,<\/a> Eisenkot is a political novice who has not a fraction of the experience he has earned as prime minister and, before that, as minister of defense, education, and economy. The same goes for Yisrael Beytenu\u2019s Avigdor Liberman, who headed six odd ministries, including defense, where he was Eisenkot\u2019s superior.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for Yair Golan of The Democrats, he brings no such political experience, but to him, Eisenkot is an equal, the fellow infantryman he succeeded as deputy chief of General Staff.<\/p>\n

\"HeadHead of opposition and head of the Yesh Atid party MK Yair Lapid leads a faction meeting at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, on July 13, 2026. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n

Even so, all three must realize that Eisenkot brings what none of them has \u2013 a symbol of the agony this country has endured and of the hope that it craves. Having lost in Gaza a son and two nephews, Eisenkot personifies our suffering. And having risen to the IDF\u2019s command as the son of immigrants from Morocco, he instills pride in many Likud-voters\u2019 hearts.<\/p>\n

Bennett, Liberman, and Golan<\/a> surely know all this. They must therefore think not how to defy Eisenkot\u2019s electoral gravity, but how to join it. And the way to do this is to present with him a shadow cabinet, a team that will display collegiality, consensus, and drive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Britain’s shadow cabinet monitor ministers, prepare to replace them<\/p>\n

IN BRITAIN, the shadow cabinet is a serious thing that sometimes makes headlines. In 1968, for instance, shadow secretary of defense Enoch Powell was fired after delivering a racist speech. And in 1931, Winston Churchill resigned as shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer after the Tories decided to back the Labour government\u2019s plan for self-rule in India.<\/p>\n

Monitoring and critiquing a particular minister\u2019s work, the shadow minister enjoys a higher public profile. Should he or she replace the minister they shadow, they will not have to study from scratch their ministry\u2019s resources and tasks.<\/p>\n

Despite its utility, Israel never had a shadow cabinet, other than one anecdotal attempt by Tommy Lapid in 2005, which fell apart several weeks after it was announced, when Lapid and his Shinui party were trounced in that year\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean it was a bad idea. It\u2019s a good idea any day, but for today\u2019s opposition it is vital, because to win, it must display collective harmony, pragmatism, and purpose. That is how swing voters will be convinced that the opposition means business and can lead this traumatized country to better times.<\/p>\n

Who, then, should be shadow minister of what?
\u00a0
THE SHADOW cabinet should only assign six senior ministries\u2019 hopeful ministers. Trying to man the full list, besides being impractical, would imply that the many unnecessary ministries in the current government are necessary.<\/p>\n

The shadow ministers\u2019 portfolios should be defense, foreign, finance, education, justice, and internal security. The way these agencies are managed will largely shape our departure from the past three years\u2019 catastrophes.<\/p>\n

Liberman’s experience, systemic thinking makes him ideal defense minister<\/p>\n

Defense should go to Liberman. Having already served in that position, he knows the defense system well. Moreover, he will work well with Eisenkot, as the two already did last decade.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Liberman thinks systemically, a merit he displayed as defense minister, when he argued that the IDF must build from scratch a missile corps, with the kind of resources and independence that existing forces like artillery, engineering, or the armored corps have.<\/p>\n

As an idea, it may or may not be right, but raising it shows that as defense minister he will bring the kind of broad, long-range outlook that an Israeli defense minister must possess, and the current defense minister lacks. After nearly three years of continuous fighting, the defense system needs the kind of comprehensive rethinking that Liberman can inspire and oversee.<\/p>\n

Foreign affairs should go to Bennett. His awareness of Israel\u2019s image crisis is deep, his understanding of the media is thorough, his English is impeccable, and he has what it takes to reboot the foreign service, which so sorely needs new resources, direction, and esprit de corps.<\/p>\n

Finance should go, for the first time in Israel\u2019s history, to a woman. There are two choices, at least. One is economist Karen Turner, a former director-general of the Finance Ministry<\/a> and the Transportation Ministry. Another is Orit Farkash-Hacohen, a lawyer who headed the Israel Public Utility Authority before turning to politics and serving, successively, as minister of science, tourism, and strategic affairs. Now running with Eisenkot, she may have an edge over Turner, who is running with Bennett and has never been a politician.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The shadow education minister should be Yair Lapid. The revolution that our ossified school system begs may well be delivered by a man who, before turning to politics at age 50, was a successful cultural entrepreneur. He owes this ministry\u2019s Kafkaesque bureaucracy nothing, and will think out of the box.<\/p>\n

The national security minister should be Golan. The man who would have headed the IDF, if not for his big mouth, is actually an able manager who can fight the anarchism \u2013 Arab, Bedouin, ultra-Orthodox, and ultra-nationalist \u2013 that Itamar Ben-Gvir tolerated and inspired.<\/p>\n

Lastly, the shadow justice minister should be Matan Kahana. A religious air force colonel who, as the previous government\u2019s minister of religious affairs, rattled that system \u2013 he is a right-wing lawyer who can help deliver a constitution by broad consensus.<\/p>\n

Introducing such a team now will convince voters that the humble and inexperienced Eisenkot will head an experienced and purposeful team that will collectively fix what its predecessors broke, and heal what they wounded.<\/p>\n

www.MiddleIsrael.net<\/p>\n

The writer, a Hartman Institute fellow, is the author of the bestseller, The Jewish March of Folly (Yedioth Books 2026), now available in English on Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fielding four aspiring prime ministers, the opposition\u2019s leaders will have to crown Gadi Eisenkot as their joint candidate.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[29674,16707,37,30318,67011,10844,81,28106],"class_list":["post-239673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-2026-israeli-elections","tag-gadi-eisenkot","tag-israel","tag-israel-elections-2026","tag-middle-israel","tag-opposition","tag-politics","tag-yashar-with-eisenkot"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117053738495827616","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}