Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli (Likud) on Monday morning responded to Gadi Eisenkot’s rise in the polls, saying: “He is a worthy political rival, but he is a leftist l’Mehadrin—clearly and completely.”

Speaking in an interview with Kan News, Chikli added that Eisenkot “just said at the INSS conference that he sees al-Julani, the al-Qaeda man who seized control of Syria through extreme brutality, as an opportunity. How exactly do you see al-Julani as an opportunity? How is he already talking about withdrawing from the Yellow Line in Gaza and Lebanon? Just imagine him speaking at the U.N. General Assembly. Imagine him in diplomatic meetings. What experience does he have? Zero diplomatic experience. And what law has he ever passed?”

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made similar comments about Eisenkot in an interview last week, saying: “Eisenkot supported Brothers in Arms, which supported refusal to serve in the IDF. He said we don’t need to attack Iran, we don’t need to eliminate Khamenei, we don’t need to enter Lebanon. It’s all documented and recorded. It’s his right to be a leftist, but it’s not honest to hide it.”

Netanyahu was far more blunt in his criticism of Eisenkot last month, when he slammed the former IDF chief of staff’s security positions as being dangerous for Israel. Asked during a press conference about Eisenkot’s criticism of his government’s handling of Lebanon. Netanyahu responded that Eisenkot is weak on security, saying during the war with Gaza and Hezbollah, Eisenkot opposed the IDF’s entry into Rafah and the seizure of the Philadelphi Corridor as well as the expansion of the war in Lebanon.

“I remember what Gadi Eisenkot and others said when we were still in Gaza,” Netanyahu said. “They said we should stop while we were still in Khan Younis —not enter Rafah, not take control of the Philadelphi Corridor. They said we should simply make a deal, bring out the hostages, and leave Gaza – leave all of Gaza. And then, two or three years later, we could come back to it.”

Netanyahu asserted that if the IDF had acted according to Eisenkot’s views, the Hamas terror group, including its leaders eliminated by Israel during the war, would still be alive and in control of Gaza, and Hezbollah would remain in full power.

“It also means that we wouldn’t have entered Lebanon at all,” Netanyahu continued. “We wouldn’t have carried out the beeper operation in 2024. We wouldn’t have eliminated Nasrallah. We wouldn’t have destroyed 90 percent of Hezbollah’s missile stockpile. We would have left all of Radwan Force’s terror tunnels right here on the border, and we wouldn’t have expanded the security zone in southern Lebanon.”

“So in the view of Gadi Eisenkot and his colleagues, they essentially wanted us to end up with nothing,” he asserted. “Today, we control nearly 70 percent of the Gaza Strip. We are placing constant pressure on Hamas. And we are holding this strong security zone in Lebanon.”

Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzchak Brik spoke even more harshly about Eisenkot, saying on Galey Yisrael that “if you read officers’ testimonies about Eisenkot, you would be horrified.”

Journalist Doron Cohen asked Brik: “I look today at the relationship between Eisenkot and the media, and I ask you: Who is controlling whom? Is he controlling them, or are they controlling him?”

Brik responded: “Neither is controlling the other. They are together, alongside one another. I think the [left-wing] media today is serving Gadi Eisenkot’s needs, willing to throw sand in the public’s eyes and hide the truth. It is essentially conveying what it is told to convey because they believe it will serve Gadi Eisenkot.”

“I currently have all the testimonies in the IDF archives. I published a booklet based on the testimonies of hundreds of officers—brigadier generals, colonels, and lieutenant colonels—with whom I spoke during Gadi Eisenkot’s tenure about how they felt in the army. If you were to read those testimonies, you would simply be horrified by what they say about what happened in the army during Gadi Eisenkot’s tenure.”

Brik continued his criticism: “Gadi Eisenkot is now saying, in his own words, while he is already running for prime minister, that everyone who was involved in the terrible events of October 7 must leave the public stage.”

“And I say to Eisenkot: How can you demand that they leave the public stage while ignoring everything that you yourself did?”

“You bear direct responsibility for what happened in the Gaza border region. Had you acted on the report I submitted to you in 2018, five years before the attack, and ensured that it was passed on to your successors, it wouldn’t have happened. The army would have prepared, expanded its forces, stopped making cuts, and developed defensive and offensive plans.”

“But you didn’t do that. You ignored the report, walked away from it, and tried to conceal it. So you are among those who bear the greatest responsibility. They should leave the public stage—but you want to be prime minister?”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)