Gadi Eisenkot, chairman of the Yashar! party and former IDF Chief of Staff, held a quiet meeting last week with MK R’ Moshe Gafni, chairman of Degel HaTorah, Channel 12 reported Sunday evening.

The meeting took place shortly after Hagaon Harav Dov Landau, shlita, announced that Degel HaTorah would be breaking from the right-wing bloc and working toward dissolving the Knesset.

According to the report, the atmosphere at the meeting was described as positive. The encounter was seen as unusual given the current political climate, and comes against the backdrop of ongoing negotiations over draft legislation affecting yeshivah students.

The conscription question has produced sharply divergent proposals among opposition figures. Eisenkot’s framework would exempt 30% of yeshivah students from service requirements, with no sanctions applied to that cohort. By contrast, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman have pushed a harder line, insisting on a universal service principle under which those who do not serve would receive no government funding.

Bennett and Lieberman have attacked Eisenkot in recent days for what they characterize as an overly lenient approach. Eisenkot, for his part, has made clear he views the draft issue as a matter on which he will not yield, even if it means another election cycle. Speaking at the Corporations Association conference last week, he said: “There are serious disagreements between me and the chareidim. The distorted reality that has emerged cannot be accepted.”

Eisenkot’s circle neither confirmed nor denied that the meeting took place, saying only that “he operates in many ways to bring forward elections and topple the government.” Gafni’s office stated that they “do not comment on meetings Gafni holds with various figures.”

The reported meeting is not the first sign of contact between Eisenkot and the chareidi parties. Approximately two weeks ago, reports emerged that chareidi representatives had conveyed messages to Eisenkot urging him not to rush into alignment with Bennett and Yair Lapid. They were said to view his conscription framework as more workable and amenable to compromise than the Bennett-Lieberman position.

Shortly after those reports surfaced, Eisenkot was spotted touring the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv, and did not rule out the possibility of sitting in a government alongside the chareidi parties.
Whether Sunday’s report of a Gafni-Eisenkot meeting signals the early outlines of a post-election political arrangement remains unclear. With elections widely expected in the coming months, the various opposition factions are jockeying for position, and conversations that would have seemed unlikely not long ago are now being reported openly.