Gadi Eisenkot entered the final stretch of Israel's October 27 election as the leader of Yashar and one of Benjamin Netanyahu's main rivals, while a new dispute erupted over whether the United States wanted the two camps to govern together. Israel Hayom.
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Gadi Eisenkot entered the final stretch of Israel's October 27 election as the leader of Yashar and one of Benjamin Netanyahu's main rivals, while a new dispute erupted over whether the United States wanted the two camps to govern together. Israel Hayom reported on October 15 that the Trump administration was promoting a broad unity arrangement involving Likud and Yashar. U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee denied that Washington was trying to interfere or dictate the next government.
Eisenkot is a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces and a former member of the emergency war cabinet. The Israel Democracy Institute identifies Yashar as the party he leads in the election for the 26th Knesset. On October 15, Eisenkot also campaigned from the Gaza border and pledged that Hamas would no longer rule Gaza within 18 months of his becoming prime minister, either through the U.S.-backed framework accepted by the Netanyahu government or through military action. That promise puts him under his own accountability test rather than allowing his campaign to be defined only by criticism of Netanyahu.
The current contradiction is sharp. A report described a U.S.-favored Likud–Yashar arrangement, while Huckabee denied the American role and Eisenkot has previously ruled out power-sharing with Netanyahu. Polling reported by the Times of Israel on October 15 also showed an unsettled race in which neither major bloc had an easy route to a majority. Those facts make coalition speculation politically powerful but do not turn speculation into a signed deal.
The strongest defense of Eisenkot is that discussing or being named in possible coalition scenarios is not evidence that he accepted them. His public campaign has instead stressed replacing Netanyahu and changing security decision-making. The strongest criticism is that his own Gaza pledge is both sweeping and consequential: if he asks voters to judge the incumbent on unmet war objectives, voters can also demand a credible path, legal constraints and a human-cost assessment for his promise to remove Hamas rule within a fixed period.
Connections matter because Benjamin Netanyahu (opens in a new tab) remains the incumbent prime minister, Donald Trump (opens in a new tab) leads Israel's most important external ally, and Mike Huckabee (opens in a new tab) is the U.S. ambassador who publicly rejected the interference claim. What comes next is not the rumor itself but the October 27 vote and the coalition arithmetic that follows it.