{"text":[[{"start":6.446,"text":"Five years ago, you would have got long odds on Gadi Eisenkot being a future Israeli prime minister. The former head of the country’s military was not in politics, his family was not keen on him entering, and he was not overburdened with the charisma that gets political consultants salivating."}],[{"start":22.062,"text":"But as Israelis prepare for an election many regard as the most important in the country’s history, those odds have shortened. Polls suggest a knife-edge race that could yet end in gridlock. And the grizzled 66-year-old is the person with the best chance of ousting Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu."}],[{"start":38.981,"text":"Sometimes dishevelled and not a natural public speaker, Eisenkot is a stark contrast to image-obsessed Netanyahu — and indeed to other opposition politicians like Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett. But allies see this as part of his appeal. Eisenkot’s image as Netanyahu’s antithesis, a straight-talking man of substance over spin, is central to his campaign."}],[{"start":60.74,"text":"“He’s not that tall and doesn’t have good English and people say rude things about the way he looks,” said Hanoch Daube, who served as Eisenkot’s chief of staff when he was deputy head of the military. “But when you have a very tough decision to make, this is the guy you want next to you.”"}],[{"start":75.59,"text":"Netanyahu is also keen to play up the differences. As with so many rivals, he has sought to cast Eisenkot, who heads the centrist Yashar party, as a dangerous leftist: someone who will undermine Israeli security and usher in a Palestinian state. Attack ads from Netanyahu’s Likud paint Eisenkot as a stooge to Israel’s Arab parties, which the prime minister has spent years delegitimising."}],[{"start":98.24,"text":"But Eisenkot is no dove. He backs Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and pledges that, if elected, he would end Hamas’s rule in Gaza within 18 months. In the 2000s he formulated Israel’s notorious Dahiya doctrine, which called for using disproportionate military force against enemies, including targeting civilian infrastructure, an approach Israel has since used to devastate Gaza and southern Lebanon."}],[{"start":125.673,"text":"“He’s not a vegetarian,” says Daube. “He was a very tough officer and he knew how to use force.”"}],[{"start":127.68,"text":"Unlike the man he is trying to replace, Eisenkot grew up far from the traditional centres of power in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The son of Mizrahi Jews, he spent his childhood in Israel’s southernmost city of Eilat, a background analysts say allows him to connect with parts of the electorate that other opposition politicians struggle to reach."}],[{"start":150.105,"text":"“He has a wider net,” says Shira Efron, from the Rand Corporation think-tank. “He can talk to the Tel Avivians, but he can also talk to people from the periphery who are traditionally voters for the [Netanyahu] camp.”"}],[{"start":164.08,"text":"In a country with a history of electing generals, Eisenkot’s military career is another selling point. After joining the elite Golani Brigade, he served as military secretary to Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon before reaching the top of the army when Netanyahu made him chief of staff in 2015."}],[{"start":180.893,"text":"“He was not perhaps a natural-born soldier, not the kind of killer from Navy Seals,” says Amos Harel, the military analyst for the newspaper Haaretz who has known Eisenkot for more than two decades. “But someone . . . who saw himself rising up the ranks for many years, and then gradually as he became [more senior] understood he could go further.”"}],[{"start":200.868,"text":"After the mandatory cooling-off period for officers, Eisenkot entered politics ahead of Israel’s 2022 election, joining fellow former general Benny Gantz’s centre-right National Unity alliance. They ended up in opposition. But after Hamas’s October 7 attack in 2023, Netanyahu brought the two former generals into his emergency war cabinet."}],[{"start":222.32,"text":"Two months later, Eisenkot’s fifth child, Gal, was killed fighting in Gaza. Soon afterwards, two of his nephews died in combat. Many would have understood if he had withdrawn from politics. But people who know Eisenkot say Gal’s death only made him more committed. “It made his mission very personal,” says one longstanding friend. “He feels like he is fulfilling Gal’s unwritten will.”"}],[{"start":245.592,"text":"Eisenkot left the war cabinet after falling out with Netanyahu over strategy, and set up Yashar last year. By this summer, the party was vying with Likud to be Israel’s most popular. He has pitched himself to voters as the man to restore Israel to normality and rehabilitate its international standing."}],[{"start":265.07,"text":"At home, he has pledged to reverse a controversial judicial overhaul pushed by Netanyahu’s allies and end a longstanding military service exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews. In the West Bank, he wants to rein in spiralling settler violence."}],[{"start":280.159,"text":"Still, within Israel’s complex coalition system there remain formidable obstacles between Eisenkot and power. Polls suggest neither the Jewish opposition parties nor Netanyahu’s bloc will win a majority on Tuesday. Eisenkot could build a coalition with the support of Israel’s Arab parties. But other opposition leaders, including Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, have ruled this out."}],[{"start":303.813,"text":"He will also have to outwit the man who has dominated Israeli politics for two decades. “Even if Netanyahu loses on Tuesday, he’s not going to disappear gently into the night,” says Harel. “He’ll use every trick in the book.”"}],[{"start":316.32,"text":"Still, allies warn against writing Eisenkot off. “He won’t play dirty,” says Daube. “But you don’t become chief of staff in Israel without political skills.”"}],[{"start":332.37,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1792828748_6620.mp3"}