After quitting his party, Gadi Eisenkot says he believes he can hold ‘any role in the State of Israel’

Speaking with reporters in Tel Aviv following his decision to leave Benny Gantz’s National Unity party, outgoing MK Gadi Eisenkot says that while the two former IDF chiefs of staff have worked together for many years and respect each other, their differences eventually drove them apart politically.

“For many months now, I have been working in every way to organize and strengthen the bloc of Zionist, national, liberal and statesmanlike parties, to present a governing alternative and bring about elections and victory, as soon as possible,” Eisenkot says.

“My joint service and friendship with Benny Gantz goes back many years, but there are also differences of opinion,” he continues, adding that his former party “needed a transparent and deep democratization process.”

“Unfortunately, this did not happen,” and contributed to his decision to quit, he says, calling his former colleagues “wonderful people” whom he is convinced he will “continue to work together with to create a better future.”

National Unity recently announced that it would hold leadership primaries, although these would not extend to choosing the party’s electoral list.

“My thought was that we needed to build a leadership alternative that would bring about victory in the next elections,” Eisenkot continues, dismissing media reports about deep ideological differences with Gantz, including over whether or not to boycott Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or eventually sit with him in a government.

When asked if his exit from Gantz’s party was related to a dispute over whether or not they would consider sitting with Netanyahu in the future, Eisenkot replies that “it has nothing to do with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” adding that “everyone who was in a central position [on October 7] must resign.”

“I decided to resign from the Knesset and do the right thing to return the mandate as should have happened in clean politics,” Eisenkot says, noting that fellow party MK Matan Kahana, who is sitting nearby, had chosen to do the same.

Asked if he sees himself as fit to serve as prime minister, Eisenkot replies that he believes he “can fill any role in the State of Israel.”

Queried regarding reports that he is in talks with both former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid, Eisenkot replies that he respects both and that he “meets regularly” with Bennett.

However, he has not spoken about a political union with either, and “they were not connected in any way to this process,” he says, adding that he wants “to lead a process that will bring together all the democratic Zionist parties.”

Asked by The Times of Israel if he intends to establish his own party, he hedges, merely stating that “the goal is to replace this bad government and establish a Zionist, national, statesmanlike, democratic alternative” and that he “will do whatever it takes to achieve the goal.”