The Israeli politicians seeking to replace Netanyahu — SkimNews
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- Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett, Gadi Eisenkot, Yair Golan and Avigdor Lieberman signed a non-aggression pact at Lapid's Tel Aviv home on September 26 to oust Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the October 27 election, and the bloc's parties have all ruled out governing with Arab coalition partners.
- Gadi Eisenkot, the 66-year-old originator of the 2008 Dahiyeh Doctrine of disproportionate force, founded the centrist Yashar party in June 2025 after quitting the war cabinet; he lost his son Gal, 25, and two nephews in Gaza in December 2023, losses the source says have helped him connect with an electorate scarred by war.
- Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid formally merged into the Beyachad list in April 2026 after sharing the premiership for 18 months in 2021-2022; Bennett publicly congratulated Israeli forces for the September 2025 Doha strike targeting Hamas leaders, which killed a Qatari security official.
- Avigdor Lieberman, 68, the bloc's most hawkish figure, reiterated his 2018 claim that there are 'no innocents in Gaza' and rejected a minority government, making him what an Israeli analyst calls the principal obstacle to Eisenkot becoming the bloc's prime ministerial candidate.
- Yair Golan, the bloc's only Zionist-left leader and sole candidate open to working with Palestinian parties, drew firestorm criticism in May 2025 saying 'a sane country does not kill babies as a hobby' before walking the comment back, and later called the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei a 'mistake.'
- None of the five supports establishing a Palestinian state — with only Golan's Democrats acknowledging it as a distant, unspecified goal — and none accepts that Israel's actions in Gaza constitute genocide or war crimes despite a reported death toll exceeding 74,000.
Why it matters: The opposition's near-uniform refusal to back Palestinian statehood or acknowledge potential war crimes in Gaza — where more than 74,000 have been killed — means a Netanyahu ouster would likely reshape Israel's international optics more than its actual policy. Coalition math is also fragile: Lieberman's blanket rejection of minority governments and Bennett's vocal backing of the controversial 2025 Doha strike make a stable replacement government difficult to assemble even if the bloc wins.
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