World / Don’t Believe the Gadi Eisenkot Hype The former IDF leader is being touted as the “anti-Netanyahu” in Israel’s upcoming elections. Former Israeli army chief of staff Gadi Eizenkot speaks during the launch of the Yashar party’s election campaign in Hod Aharon, Israel on June 30, 2026. A recent David Remnick profile of Eisenkot in The New Yorker presents the former IDF leader as the “anti-Bibi” in both “manner and character”—a “humble soldier” fighting for a “Jewish, democratic, progressive, and liberal state.” Heavily downplayed amid these sanguine thoughts about what kind of leader Eisenkot could be is the issue of the kind of military leader he has already been. In a 2008 interview, Eisenkot acknowledged that this policy deliberately used disproportionate force against the civilian population, “causing great damage and destruction.”