The Israeli politicians seeking to replace Netanyahu

On September 26, five leading members of Israel’s self-styled Zionist opposition signed a non-aggression pact, seeking to oust incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu in the October 27 election.

Gathered at the Tel Aviv home of opposition leader Yair Lapid were his co-runner, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of Beyachad; former Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the new Yashar party; Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats party; and Avigdor Liberman, head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party.

In the statement of principles published after the hours-long meeting, the leaders said, “Despite ideological differences among us, the formation of a Zionist, statesmanlike government dedicated to repair and reconstruction is our shared overarching goal.”

However, whether they offer meaningful change in substance as well as style, or which one of them might lead a future coalition, remains open to question.

With the exception of Golan, all take a fundamentally right-wing approach to Israel’s challenges.

None is committed to establishing a Palestinian state, with only the Democrats acknowledging it as a distant, unspecified goal. None, Golan included, accepts that Israel’s war on Gaza amounts to genocide or that it has committed war crimes in killing more than 74,000 people there. Nor has any questioned Israeli military actions against Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Qatar and Iran, instead reserving criticism mostly for how those actions have allowed Israel to be perceived internationally.

“The dominant forces in the opposition such as Bennett, Liberman or Eisenkot represent right-wing politics,” said Ahron Bregman, an Israeli analyst and senior teaching fellow at King’s College London. “They are not willing to touch the real, fundamental issue which is at the heart of everything: the Palestinian issue, and the Palestinian aspirations for independence.” He likened them to Netanyahu, but without the corruption allegations and support of far-right figures, such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. “Israel as a whole is a right-wing nation,” he added.

So, who are the main opposition figures and what do their parties stand for?

Gadi Eisenkot – Yashar

Credited with originating the Dahiyeh Doctrine in 2008, involving “disproportionate force” and large-scale destruction of civilian infrastructure against groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, Eisenkot served as Israeli military chief from 2015 to 2019.

The 66-year-old entered politics in 2022 with former Defence Minister Benny Gantz’s National Unity alliance and later joined the war cabinet assembled by Netanyahu after the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. In December that year, his son Gal, 25, and two nephews were killed while participating in the genocide in Gaza, losses commentators say have helped forge a connection with an electorate that has come to see itself as scarred by war.

In June 2024, he quit the war cabinet alongside Gantz, accusing Netanyahu of lacking a strategy to end the war. A year later, Eisenkot founded the centrist Yashar (Straight/Honest), advocating for professional government, military service for all – including ultra-Orthodox Jews – and a state commission of inquiry into the failings before October 7.

While notoriously ambiguous on many of Israel’s foreign policy positions, he has been critical of the government’s reliance upon the United States in achieving its war aims, while not questioning those aims themselves. In June, he characterised Washington’s mediated negotiations with Tehran to end the war against Iran that Washington had embarked upon with Israel as “a deal taking shape far from here and far from Israeli interests” and, the same month, railed against US restrictions on Israel’s freedom of action in Lebanon.

Eisenkot has ruled out including the United Arab List, or Ra’am party, in a post-election coalition. In a September 26 Channel 12 interview, he said no Arab party would accept his conditions, including recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

 

Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid – Beyachad

Beyachad (Together) is the joint list announced in April 2026 by former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, who served for a combined 18 months in 2021-2022 between Netanyahu governments.

Bennett, a 54-year-old longtime supporter of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, leads the list, with Lapid, the 62-year-old founder of the centrist Yesh Atid party, in second place.

Lapid has called his partner “a right-wing politician, but an honest one”. Neither has prioritised resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or supported a Palestinian state. Though their 2021 coalition included Ra’am, Bennett has acknowledged that this broke an electoral promise.

Lapid has been one of Israel’s most outspoken critics of how its genocide and multiple strikes upon its neighbours are perceived internationally, while rarely questioning the rationale behind those actions. Bennett, in contrast, is more outspoken in his hawkish views. A full-throated supporter of the country’s war on Iran, he also congratulated Israel’s military and security services for a September 2025 attack on Qatar’s capital, Doha, that targeted senior Hamas leaders as they met to consider a Gaza ceasefire proposal put forth by the US. A Qatari security official was killed in the attack, which drew condemnation from across the region and beyond.

They now seek a government composed solely of Zionist parties, also ruling out reliance on Arab parties.

Avigdor Lieberman – Yisrael Beiteinu

The most hawkish voice at Lapid’s table, Lieberman, 68, founded Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) in 1999 to represent right-leaning Russian-speaking immigrants.

Once Netanyahu’s protege, Lieberman has ruled out serving under him or joining a coalition that includes the ultra-Orthodox or relies on Arab parties, which he calls anti-Zionist. He has also rejected a minority government, reportedly making him a principal obstacle to Eisenkot becoming the bloc’s prime ministerial candidate.

In November 2023, Lieberman repeated his 2018 assertion, made then as defence minister, that there were “no innocents in Gaza”. In February, he visited the Karem Abu Salem crossing, known as Kerem Shalom to Israelis, and accused Netanyahu’s government of funding Hamas by allowing the minimal humanitarian aid that has been permitted into Gaza.

The Yisrael Beiteinu leader has been a consistent supporter of Israel’s genocide and subsequent military actions. In September 2025, he joined other Israeli politicians in criticising Netanyahu for the apology to Doha that he had been forced to make by the Trump administration for that month’s strike, saying the apology was instead owed to the Israeli public. Equally, he has argued against any restraint in its invasion of Lebanon, telling the Jerusalem Post in March: “If once again we go for a limited operation, some manoeuvre near the border, maybe talk about a security zone, it’s complete madness.”

“Lieberman does not belong in this bloc,” said Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, an Israeli analyst with Atlas Global Strategies, arguing that his main motivation was hatred of Netanyahu.

However, Ben-Ephraim said, Lieberman “maintains a loyal base and is a crucial force in Israeli politics”. His core constituency is the former Soviet electorate, but he has gained wider trust through his perceived independence.

Observers say he could potentially return to Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc.

Yair Golan – Democrats

The only leader at Lapid’s table from the Zionist left and the only one open to working with Palestinian parties, Golan heads the Democrats, a liberal party that was formed in 2024 through the merger of Labor and the social democratic, secular Meretz.

A retired major-general and former deputy chief of staff, Golan, 64, earned domestic plaudits for driving south during the 2023 Hamas-led attack and helping repel it.

Golan is alone among many in the anti-Netanyahu bloc in his criticism of the government’s war aims, arguing that military achievements are being squandered without a coherent diplomatic and political strategy

In May 2025, two years into the genocide in Gaza, Golan sparked controversy when he told a news conference that a “sane country does not kill babies as a hobby”, accusing ministers of celebrating the starvation of Palestinian children in the territory. He later walked back the comments after widespread criticism in Israel. In October, while praising the achievements of the previous year’s 12-day war against Iran, he told party members that the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at the beginning of the conflict was a “mistake”. “Not because he didn’t deserve to die,” he caveated, “only because it doesn’t serve the interests of the State of Israel.”

Despite his openness to working with Palestinian parties, in September, Golan backed the disqualification of Sami Abu Shehadeh, leader of the Arab Balad party, over an article about October 7, drawing criticism from the Joint List – an alliance of the Arab-led Hadash, Ta’al and Balad parties – and commentators.

Roi Zur, a University of Essex specialist in Israeli politics, said that despite Golan and Lieberman’s ideological differences on security and conflict, there will be “no winning coalition without these two”. He added that concerns about a clash between them miss the point, noting that both oppose Netanyahu, favour secularisation and strongly oppose exemptions from military service for ultra-Orthodox Jews.