Eisenkot advances. Yachar's rise ignites far-right attack

The former chief of staff of the occupation army and the head of the Yashar party, Gadi Eisenkot, has achieved a lead in the latest opinion polls, over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The latest poll conducted by the Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation on Sunday evening , July 12, showed a remarkable superiority for the Yashar party with 24 seats, ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, which won 23 seats, in the first time that Likud has been removed from the lead in many years, according to the channel.

This poll comes in conjunction with the date of the official dissolution of the Knesset on July 17, in preparation for the legislative elections on October 27, amid a frantic race between political blocs to redraw the map of power within the Israeli parliament.

According to the results of the distribution of seats, Yashar's party won 24 seats, followed by Likud with 23 seats, while the "Bayahad/Ma'an" alliance led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid won 15 seats, and Yisrael Beytenu's party won 10 seats.

Netanyahu trails Eisenkot by 4 points

The Democrats (the Labor and Meretz alliance led by Yair Golan) won 9 seats, Otzma Yehudit, Shas and Yehudut HaTorah each won 8 seats, and the Religious Zionist Party led  by Bezalel Smotrich won 5 seats, the same number as the Alliance of the Front and the Arab League for Change, in addition to the United Arab List led by Mansour Abbas, which also scored 5 seats.

The poll showed that the opposition bloc is able to reach 61 seats in the Knesset, without relying on parties representing the Palestinians or the ultra-Orthodox parties, through cooperation with a party that includes Gilad Erdan, Yuli Edelstein and Ayelet Shaked.

As for the prime minister's position, Eisenkot's approval rating rose to 41 percent compared to Netanyahu's 37 percent

Far-right parties attack Yachar

Extremist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir launched  a broad  attack on Eisenkot following his top spot in recent opinion polls, considering his rise as a direct threat to the ideological right's project.

In his remarks, Ben-Gvir focused on accusing Eisenkot of "surrender" and military weakness, describing him as representing the "old conception" that weakened Israel's deterrence power, warning that Eisenkot's victory would lead to an end to the war in Gaza without achieving what the right calls a "complete victory," a rhetoric aimed at mobilizing settlers and hard-line voters.

 The  head of the Religious Zionist Party, Bezalel Smotrich, warned that the Eisenkot bloc will not be able to form a government without relying on the support of Arab parties, led by the United Arab List or the Arab Front for Change Alliance, which he described as an "Arab-backed government" that will lead, according to his claims, to a settlement freeze, a halt to settlement development budgets and political concessions to the Palestinians.

Usual propaganda

The far right is using this rhetoric as an ideological warning tool for Zionist voters, in an attempt to link Eisenkot's rise to a direct threat to the annexation and settlement project in the West Bank.

Political analysis in Tel Aviv indicates that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are aware that Eisenkot's rise and the official dissolution of the Knesset mean the end of their absolute influence within the ruling coalition, prompting them to launch an early election campaign that is considered the fiercest, including behind-the-scenes talks to merge into a unified list to prevent the dispersion of right-wing votes, as well as attacking Likud and Netanyahu to attract voters angry at the prime minister's retreat, while intensifying the rhetoric about settlements and the legalization of slums to satisfy the settlers' hard bases.