On election day, Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar has surged to the top of the polls ahead of the October 27 elections for the 26th Knesset. The new centrist party, founded in September 2025, is now projected to win 21-23 seats.
That range puts Yashar in a position no new party usually reaches so quickly. Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff, built the party around national security, a broad alternative to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and a message aimed at voters who want a new leadership slate before the vote.
Gadi Eisenkot and National Unity
Eisenkot entered politics in August 2022 through Benny Gantz’s National Unity alliance, which brought together Blue and White and New Hope. After the October 7 massacre, Eisenkot and Gantz joined the emergency government; Gantz became a member of the war cabinet, and Eisenkot served as an observer. They left the government in June 2024, saying Netanyahu’s leadership had failed to make the strategic decisions needed to achieve the war’s objectives.
He left National Unity in July 2025 and resigned from the Knesset the same month. Eisenkot said he wanted a transparent and democratic process for choosing candidates, and he also argued that National Unity had not carried out the internal reforms he sought. Two months later, he founded Yashar with former politicians, senior security figures, and other public figures.
Yashar’s security platform
Yashar places national security at the center of its platform. Its foreign policy focuses on confronting Iran, dismantling Hamas’s rule in Gaza, containing Hezbollah in Lebanon, and deciding the future of Palestinian governance and security arrangements.
Eisenkot has favored a lasting, verifiable resolution of Iran’s nuclear threat. If diplomacy fails, his proposals include US-enforced restrictions around remaining enriched-uranium sites and wider covert action against Iran’s missile capabilities. On Gaza, Yashar says it would replace Hamas while keeping an Israeli security corridor, with reconstruction advancing step by step alongside partial disarmament.
Netanyahu, West Bank, and seats
Earlier in October, Eisenkot pledged to destroy Hamas’s military wing and dismantle its leadership within 18 months. In Lebanon, he supports a security zone and stronger American and French involvement in efforts to confront Hezbollah. He has also opposed a Palestinian state, but told The Jerusalem Post that he would consider the Palestinian Authority preferable to continued Hamas rule if those are the alternatives.
Eisenkot told The Jerusalem Post that he would return Civil Administration responsibilities to military coordination and restore military coordination of policing in the West Bank. Yashar’s domestic agenda centers on reforming military-service obligations, easing the cost of living, and directing economic support toward working Israelis, young people, and those who serve the country. Its clearest established position is opposition to blanket haredi exemptions from military service.
The immediate test is whether a poll lead can become governing leverage. Yashar did not exist in the 25th Knesset, and its rise now collides with the same political problem Eisenkot set out to solve: whether a fresh center can turn 21-23 projected seats into enough support to challenge Netanyahu after election day.
