Eisenkot officially launches Yashar’s election campaign, vows to be ‘PM for all Israelis’

Former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot officially launches his Yashar party’s election campaign, which he says will “open a new and much better page” for the country.

Eisenkot vows to the crowd in Hod Hasharon he will be a “unifying” leader rooted in “the tradition of Israel, its heritage and Torah,” and “to be a prime minister for all Israeli citizens,” suggesting he doesn’t intend to form an alliance with any other factions that he wouldn’t head.

He calls the upcoming elections “fateful for the security, unity and soul of Israel,” listing as some of his key goals “the rehabilitation of the north and south… growing the ranks of the military to make it significantly easier for conscripts and reservists — without compromising on security” and forming a state commission of inquiry into the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacres.

While he doesn’t mention Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by name, Eisenkot says there are “those” who sow division and “advance steps that go against the national interest and are a slap in the face of the Israelis who work, serve and are willing to sacrifice their lives for this homeland” — a reference to the government’s attempts to pass legislation reinstating blanket military exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men and to cancel sanctions for draft evasion.

He also dismisses Netanyahu’s calls for a “broad national unity government” after the elections, saying, “the leadership is using the term ‘national unity’ as a cynical election campaign. I will do everything to unify the nation.”

“This is a leadership in which the words ‘accountability’ and ‘personal example’ are foreign. It is a leadership that lies. As if there is no other way besides the chaos in which we live, which fuels division as if it has no cost; whose only way of governing is to pull us apart,” Eisenkot charges.

“We have a duty to put an end to this madness… because the State of Israel doesn’t have the privilege of getting it wrong again,” he adds. “We will replace a leadership devoid of any vision and strategy.”

“Will we accept the continuation of social divisions and go full throttle toward the next disaster,” he asks, “or will we heal and rebuild?”