The View from Here

Israel’s unlikely savior is a Sephardic career soldier whose family paid the ultimate price in its recent wars. But can he coalesce enough disparate factions to finally end Netanyahu’s poisonous reign?

By Yossi Melman

Everyone in Israel understands that the country has never been in a more precarious state. It is increasingly isolated and facing accusations of war crimes. It’s fighting a multi-front war that is stretching its military capabilities, and confronting a rising cost of living and a weakening economy, while Israeli society itself is divided. An increasing number of young, educated Israelis are leaving in search of a different future. And yet the future they seek might be on its way.

In just under nine weeks, Israel will hold what will likely be its most consequential election in the country’s young life, and the change many Israelis seek may come in the form of a reserved, 66-year-old general named Gadi Eisenkot, who has emerged as the crucial antidote to the corrosive government of Benjamin Netanyahu. “Gadi is the complete opposite of Netanyahu,” one of his advisers told me. “If he becomes prime minister, his intention is to restore Israel to what it once was: a sane, balanced, and responsible country.”