They chant his name, they cheer and clap – and yet he is not the most dominant person in the room.
asserted
he → chant → room
Looming over the crowd that has gathered to hear Gadi Eisenkot, the former general who is the lead opposition challenger in Tuesday’s Israeli election, is a man who is not there.
asserted
who → loom → election
It is the man Eisenkot seeks to replace as prime minister, the man who first served in that role three decades ago and who has held it, on and off, for 19 of the past 30 years.
asserted
who → seek → years
Naturally, the warm-up speakers at this evening rally in the modest city of Modi’in, halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, stress the virtues of Eisenkot, a son of working-class Moroccan Jews who rose through the ranks to become chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces and entered politics only four years ago.
asserted
who → warm → politics
But every sentence might as well end with two words that go unspoken: unlike Bibi.
uncertain
that → end → Bibi
Even the name of Eisenkot’s party, Yashar, meaning straight or direct, carries the implied contrast with Netanyahu, who is regarded by friends and enemies alike as a maestro of the darkest political arts.
asserted
who → mean → arts
When Eisenkot calls for “a country without lies”, when he calls for “responsibility and leading by example”, when he suggests US-style term limits for the role of prime minister, “because power corrupts”, everyone knows what – and who – he means.
uncertain
he → call → who
None of this comes with rhetorical fire or theatrical panache.
asserted
None → come → fire
But the lack of charisma serves only to emphasise that Eisenkot is every inch the un-Bibi.
asserted
Eisenkot → serve → charisma
“I think that’s an advantage,” Noa Sadeh, 56, told me after Wednesday night’s rally.
asserted
Sadeh → think → rally
“I’m fed up with people who know how to talk – like Bibi.
asserted
who → feed → Bibi
We need someone who will do the doing part.”
asserted
who → need → part
Spotting a journalist with a notebook, David Nadler, 74, a retired colonel who served under Eisenkot, insisted I write down the word “integrity”, meaning “he says something, he means it, he will do it”.
asserted
he → spot → it
It’s hard to overstate Netanyahu’s dominance not only over this campaign but over Israeli politics and political culture.
asserted
It → ’ → politics
The latter camp includes at least two figures – the former PM Naftali Bennett and the Moldova-born Avigdor Lieberman – whose natural home is on the nationalist right and who both once worked closely with Netanyahu, only to fall out with him spectacularly.
asserted
home → include → him
Almost every political figure is defined, or defines themselves, in relation to Netanyahu.
asserted
figure → define → Netanyahu
Eisenkot offers himself as the antidote, but listen to the pitch made by the far right and it too is all about the prime minister.
asserted
it → offer → minister
Netanyahu is like a shopping trolley, says Yishai Fleisher, of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, to a group of about 30 orthodox voters in a study hall in Bet Shemesh on Thursday evening.
asserted
Fleisher → say → evening
“He has a tendency to go left, so you have to pull him to the right.”
asserted
you → have → right
Fleischer makes the case for yet more Jewish settlements in the West Bank, to say nothing of settling Gaza; for a “ministry of emigration” that will encourage the “voluntary” departure of Palestinians; for the death penalty; for ever harsher treatment of Palestinian prisoners; for putting more guns and more ammunition into the hands of Jewish Israeli civilians – but all in the context of strengthening the resolve of a new Netanyahu-led coalition.
asserted
that → make → coalition
On the right, Ben-Gvir is a moon that is rising, but Netanyahu is still the sun.
asserted
Netanyahu → rise → right
Partly, that’s a function of sheer longevity.
asserted
that → ’ → longevity
But it’s also down to Netanyahu’s undimmed ability to set the political agenda.
asserted
it → ’ → agenda
Even in this election, he has demarcated the terrain on which battle is fought.
asserted
battle → demarcate → which
His latest poster campaign offers voters a rhyming choice of Yamin, meaning the right, or Falastin, meaning Palestine.
asserted
campaign → offer → Palestine
On the right side is, of course, his own face and the Israeli flag; on the other, the leaders of the opposition parties, including Bennett and Lieberman who are adamantly opposed to a Palestinian state, all of them surrounding two heads of parties that represent Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up about a fifth of the country’s population.
asserted
who → include → population
The message is not subtle: vote for me, or you’ll get the Arabs.
asserted
you → vote → Arabs
Indeed, the closing weeks of the campaign have centred on the question of whether the anti-Netanyahu bloc of Jewish Israeli parties – currently forecast to do better than the Netanyahu bloc but to fall short of an overall majority in the Knesset – will do some kind of parliamentary deal with the mainly Arab parties, most of which have, historically, both refused to join Israeli governments and not been invited.
asserted
most → close → governments
Backed by that chunk of the media that is loudly and vociferously pro-Netanyahu, most notably the Fox News wannabe Channel 14, Netanyahu has succeeded in putting his opponents on the defensive.
asserted
Netanyahu → back → defensive
A rare exception to that pattern came just this week when a Netanyahu uber-loyalist, Channel 14’s Yinon Magal, characterised Eisenkot as a Moroccan “monkey”.
asserted
loyalist → come → monkey
The racial slur was so crude that had it been used by the left to describe a politician of the right, it would have had Netanyahu denouncing Ashkenazi elitism from the rooftops (even though Netanyahu is, of course, a privileged scion of the Ashkenazi elite).
asserted
Netanyahu → use → elite
Tellingly, while the warm-up speakers in Modi’in mentioned the “monkey” remark, Eisenkot himself did not.
asserted
Eisenkot → warm → remark
To his admirers, that was the mark of a decent man reluctant to follow his opponents into the gutter.
asserted
that → follow → gutter
To the doubters, it was a sign of a politician still playing by Marquess of Queensbury rules – one who doesn’t quite appreciate what, or rather who, he is up against.
asserted
he → play → what
How can the polls be showing the two blocs, pro- and anti-Netanyahu, neck and neck?
asserted
polls → show → blocs
Abroad, many will be baffled that Netanyahu can still be in contention given the devastation his government brought down upon Gaza, flattening much of the territory and killing more than 70,000 Palestinians, even if, as Israel says, one-third of them were Hamas combatants.
asserted
third → baffle → them
But even inside Israel, where the impact of the war on the people of Gaza is all too rarely discussed, it is no less of a riddle that Netanyahu is a serious candidate in these elections, let alone one who could emerge on top.
uncertain
who → discuss → top
To start with the most elemental fact, the biggest disaster in the country’s history happened on his watch.
asserted
disaster → start → watch
The massacres inflicted on civilian Israel on 7 October 2023, at the Nova music festival and at a string of southern kibbutzim, are still fresh in the memory.
asserted
massacres → inflict → memory
Stickers depicting the faces of those killed on that day adorn bus stops and railway platforms from one end of the country to the other.
asserted
Stickers → depict → other
…and 29 more, not listed.
The Aporia
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