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- 5 opposition leaders pledge campaign cooperation, but competing ambitions leave leadership of a potential government unresolved - Eisenkot’s rise creates tensions within opposition as parties compete for voters while seeking a collective majority - ‘The internal contradictions are still tearing through them, and Netanyahu is exploiting them,’ researcher Mohammad Halaseh tells Anadolu
By Rania Abushamala
ISTANBUL (AA) - Israel’s opposition leaders have agreed to coordinate their campaigns ahead of the Oct. 27 parliamentary elections in an effort to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but deep ideological differences and competing leadership ambitions continue to complicate their challenge.
Their pact aims to curb infighting and boost turnout, without resolving the leadership rivalries and ideological differences that could prevent them from forming a government.
At stake is whether Netanyahu can prolong the rule of a coalition widely described as the most right-wing in Israel’s history, or whether his opponents can turn their shared desire to remove him into a workable alternative.
Here is what they have agreed, where they remain divided and what it would take to replace Netanyahu.
- Who is cooperating, and on what?
Five leaders represent four electoral lists.
Former military chief Gadi Eisenkot heads Yashar, emphasizing security and institutional reform. Former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid are running together under Beyachad, combining Bennett’s right-wing background with Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid.
Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu combines hawkish security positions with a secular agenda. Yair Golan leads the left-leaning Democrats, formed through the Labor-Meretz alliance.
They pledged to stop attacking one another and established teams covering turnout, media strategy and preparations for a government.
Palestinian academic and researcher on Israeli affairs Mohammad Halaseh stressed that the agreement does not reflect a comprehensive political consensus.
“Opposition leaders share one, and only one, common denominator: the desire to remove Netanyahu from power,” Halaseh told Anadolu. “But many differences divide them.”
Despite their differences, the opposition leaders presented a common set of principles that include broader military service obligations, a state inquiry into the Oct. 7 failures, prime ministerial term limits and a constitution.
- Can Eisenkot turn his polling lead into the premiership?
Eisenkot leads his opposition rivals in polling, but their campaign agreement leaves the leadership contest open.
“They agreed to postpone the question of who leads the opposition until after the election results,” Halaseh said.
An Oct. 14 Madad poll projected 20 seats for Eisenkot’s Yashar and 18 for Netanyahu’s Likud, but only 50 combined for the four coordinating opposition lists – short of a majority of 61 in the 120-seat Knesset.
Netanyahu’s outgoing coalition parties received 47 seats in the poll, rising to 51 with the right-wing Amcha Israel. Arab lists received 15 seats and the Reservists list four.
“Eisenkot advances against Netanyahu in opinion polls, but the opposition bloc does not establish a gap over the right-wing coalition bloc,” Halaseh said.
Nor would leading the opposition guarantee Eisenkot the premiership. Bennett’s Yamina won seven seats in 2021, yet he became prime minister through a rotation agreement with Lapid, who succeeded him in 2022.
Halaseh said coalition bargaining could again force leadership concessions.
Eisenkot also faces the challenge of retaining an ideologically diverse electorate.
Today, Eisenkot’s party includes left-wing voters, centrists and right-wing voters,” he said.
“This is what Netanyahu is betting on: not only playing on the contradictions among opposition leaders, but also on the contradictions within Eisenkot’s party.”
- Why do potential partners matter?
If the opposition lacks a majority, Arab lawmakers could help it take office by supporting – or abstaining in – the parliamentary vote approving a government, without joining its cabinet.
Lieberman has rejected governing with such outside support. Eisenkot has resisted leaving Netanyahu in power solely because his opposition lacks 61 seats, while setting conditions for parties joining his government.
Eisenkot has said Arab parties are not viable coalition partners because they would not accept his requirements.
Whether he would accept their support from outside the government remains a separate question.
Halaseh argued that Netanyahu could exploit this ambiguity more easily against Eisenkot than Bennett, a former Netanyahu chief of staff with roots in the right.
“It is difficult for Netanyahu to confront someone leading the opposition who is right-wing like him,” he said.
- Would security policy change?
Eisenkot offered a concrete example recently of how opposition to Netanyahu can coexist with promises of further military action.
Speaking near Gaza, he pledged to end Hamas’s rule within 18 months of becoming prime minister, through US President Donald Trump’s framework or military action, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Likud questioned whether Arab politicians Mansour Abbas and Ahmad Tibi would permit him to act. Eisenkot responded by accusing Netanyahu and Likud of strengthening Hamas.
The exchange links security policy to the opposition’s unresolved coalition choices.
“The opposition wants the discussion to revolve around the Oct. 7 failure and conscription, but Netanyahu always redirects attention toward external threats and security,” Halaseh said.
That strategy, he argued, allows Netanyahu to present himself as uniquely capable of confronting those threats and completing Israel’s military objectives.
“His slogan today is ‘either the right or Palestine,’ in an attempt to delegitimize his opponents and accuse them of making concessions,” he said.
An Israel Democracy Institute survey published in September found security and foreign affairs narrowly ahead of the economy among Jewish voters’ top considerations.
“The opposition’s positions often come as an echo of Netanyahu’s positions,” Halaseh said.
- How could Netanyahu retain power?
Netanyahu must preserve support while preventing smaller right-wing parties from wasting votes by falling below the 3.25% electoral threshold required for parliamentary representation.
“Netanyahu is playing in two directions: weakening the opposition and keeping it fragmented and divided, and dealing with the small right-wing parties that threaten to drain or waste votes from the right-wing bloc,” Halaseh said.
Another potential partner is Ofer Winter’s Amcha Israel, which opposes Palestinian statehood, supports judicial reform and advocates what it calls voluntary emigration from Gaza. Its support for ultra-Orthodox enlistment could, however, complicate cooperation with religious parties in his existing coalition.
Indeed, Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has repeatedly returned to power despite fierce opposition and an ongoing corruption trial.
“Netanyahu has a wider range of cards available to him than the opposition does,” Halaseh said.
Rania R.a. Abushamala
