Succession: Who will be Israel's new leaders when the Hamas war ends?

“The prime minister is emptying of content the concept of responsibility. The people of Israel know today that they are led by a prime minister who is not qualified or fit to lead them. 

“The claim that the person who made the mistakes should be the one to fix them is fundamentally crazy. Would you trust a surgeon who failed? Or a bus driver who caused a fatal accident? But this government is avoiding the will of the people and its pain.”

These were among the many comments made in 2008 by then-opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu directed at then-prime minister Ehud Olmert, following the publication of the Winograd Report on the Second Lebanon War. Netanyahu often made such remarks in the years after that war. 

Although an official inquiry into the war that erupted in Israel on October 7 has yet to begin, the catastrophe on that fateful day, in which approximately 1,200 Israelis were massacred, speaks for itself.

The prime minister, however, has not yet assumed responsibility for the events of that day, does not appear close to stepping down, and even said in a press conference on December 30 that he would not resign, as “the only thing I intend to get rid of is Hamas.”

But despite Netanyahu’s confidence, Israel seems to be nearing a tipping point.

A growing number of Israelis are joining rallies on Saturday nights and protesting opposite the IDF’s Kirya headquarters in Tel Aviv and the Knesset in Jerusalem. The messages at these rallies have begun to shift from calling on the government to do more to release 136 hostages remaining in Hamas captivity, to calling for a new government entirely. Some 53% of respondents in a Channel 13 poll conducted this week believed Netanyahu’s main considerations in his wartime decision-making to be personal interests, compared to just 33% who thought he had the country’s best interest at heart.

Discontent is also augmenting within the coalition. An increasing number of coalition MKs, especially from the far-Right, believe that the prime minister is caving in to US pressure and will agree to end the war to free the hostages even before Hamas is defeated. A petition circulated among the coalition’s Knesset members this week, requesting signatures on a document calling on the prime minister to follow through on his promise to topple Hamas.

The petition has yet to be published, but National Security Minister and Otzma Yehudit Chairman MK Itamar Ben-Gvir put it succinctly in a post on X: “No war = no government.”

Many of the Knesset members in the coalition who spoke to the Magazine over the past two weeks agreed that this tipping point – which one even called an “Archimedean point” – is most likely to occur when ministers without portfolio and war cabinet members Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot announce that they are leaving the government, which they joined on October 11, four days after the outbreak of the war.

That moment seems to be drawing closer. 

Eisenkot said, in a widely watched interview on January 18, that Israeli leadership must earn anew the trust of the public via an election. Although Eisenkot did not say when he thought this should happen, he harshly criticized Netanyahu, saying that Israel’s leader was not telling the people the truth about Israel’s capability to achieve both of the war’s stated goals in the short term – toppling Hamas and freeing the Israeli hostages.

A spokesperson for Gantz explained that Gantz and Eisenkot would remain in the war cabinet as long as they felt that they were influencing its decision-making. One major decision is looming: whether or not to enter a full-out war with Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border. Gantz and Eisenkot want to have a say in this decision and want to remain at the forefront if such a war breaks out. However, if the two conclude that Netanyahu is incessantly dragging his feet or if Israel and Lebanon solve the northern conflict via diplomacy, they will leave the government soon after, the spokesperson said.

The two would be wise to do so as soon as possible, as according to the Channel 13 poll, not only is their party polling far ahead of the rest of the field – 37 seats under Gantz, 39 under Eisenkot, with the Likud in second place with 16 – but Gantz and Eisenkot are far ahead of Netanyahu in head-to-head matchups for suitability to serve as prime minister, with Gantz at 48% vs Netanyahu’s 30%, and Eisenkot at 45% vs Netanyahu’s 32%.

With near consensus among analysts and politicians that an election is inevitable, Netanyahu is in a bind. His Likud is polling at half of its current 32, and Likud Knesset members are beginning to understand that with Netanyahu at the helm, in the next election the Likud is likely to be removed from power.

Moshe Klughaft, former strategic adviser to prime ministers Netanyahu and Bennett and co-founder of ActAi, which deals, among others, with the personalization of election campaigns around the world, estimates that Netanyahu will announce a date for an election when he sees that his government is teetering due to pressure from parties that are gaining in the polls – Gantz on one hand, and Ben-Gvir on the other. The move will be supported by Likud members who realize that if they stay put, they will likely be out of a job and will attempt to stay on the wheel by switching sides.

With this current situation in mind, there are four groups that are likely to play a major part in the next election.

The Netanyahu successors

The Channel 13 poll found that if the Likud were to run in an election headed by Economy Minister Nir Barkat – one of the leading candidates to replace Netanyahu as party head – the Likud would get 21 seats, five more than under Netanyahu. This is a rise of over 30%, some 200,000 votes.

Barkat’s main competitors for the title of prime minister are Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee (FADC) Chairman MK Yuli Edelstein.

The battle between these figures is ongoing beneath the surface and is partly the reason Netanyahu is still in power.

The prime minister can theoretically be removed from power via a parliamentary procedure called “constructive no-confidence,” without the nation having to head to an election during wartime. 

In a constructive no-confidence vote, a majority of the Knesset’s 120 members vote to institute a new government. National Unity and opposition parties Yesh Atid and Yisrael Beytenu would presumably support such a move, but their combined 42 seats would require at least 19 MKs from the Likud. Since the Likud has failed to rally behind a single candidate, the votes don’t add up. However, even if one of the potential successors managed to create a significant following within the party, 19 MKs is still unrealistically high, a source explained.

The constructive no-confidence vote is Gallant’s preferred option. Gallant joined politics as part of Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu Party and is somewhat of an outsider in the Likud. It would be difficult to win the party lead in a primary election against the likes of Katz, a long-time Likud member and current leader of the party’s Secretariat, one of its most important institutions.

Gallant earned respect from the opposition and some members of the Likud when, in late March last year, he became the first minister to speak publicly against the Likud’s proposed reforms of Israel’s judicial system, warning that the internal divisiveness caused by the reforms would harm Israel’s national security. Edelstein, for example, supported Gallant’s actions in March. 

According to a source, Edelstein could potentially support Gallant in a move to replace Netanyahu via constructive no-confidence. The Gallant option also makes sense as a wartime appointment, as the defense minister is already part of the war cabinet and is up to speed on the war’s progress. A joint Edelstein-Gallant push leaves the constructive no-confidence option alive, but the two are still unlikely to garner enough votes from within the Likud to make the move work.

The more likely scenario is an election – and therefore a primary battle for the leadership of the party, which could affect the Likud in unexpected ways. On one hand, a hard-fought primary battle could revitalize the party and re-energize voters, but on the other, create infighting that could harm the party in the general election.

The new Right

The second focus group is a list of figures on the Right who would aim to capitalize on the Likud’s possible implosion and perhaps even assist in bringing it about. These figures include former prime minister Naftali Bennett; former justice minister and interior minister Ayelet Shaked; former communications minister Yoaz Hendel; former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen; and current Minister-without-portfolio MK Gideon Sa’ar.

Sa’ar’s New Hope faction ran in the past election under Gantz’s umbrella alongside Gantz’s Blue and White faction. But Sa’ar intends to break away from Gantz in the coming election, according to a source. Sa’ar’s party is farther to the Right than Gantz on matters of national security and, with this being the focal point of the next election, the two factions are no longer compatible. Sa’ar is likely to make an independent decision on whether or not to leave the government and could thus affect the timing of the election itself.

Still, assuming that Sa’ar will not back Netanyahu eternally, he and other Right-wing figures above will fill a gaping electoral hole between Gantz in the center and the Likud on the Right.

“In the previous election, the camp deemed the ‘statesmanlike Right’ barely even passed the electoral threshold; it was sort of a rumor whose components needed to be found under a magnifying glass in Givat Shmuel and Modi’in. This time, they have become the center of the election – from the kid who is bullied to the most popular in class,” Klughaft says.

These days, this bloc is worth approximately 20 seats, which currently support Gantz but will move away from him once a worthy candidate farther to the Right comes forward, Klughaft says.

This new Right-wing camp will differentiate itself from the Likud in three central ways: It will not support Netanyahu; it does not bear direct responsibility for the October 7 catastrophe; and its style will be more respectful and less tempestuous, Klughaft adds. 

He believes that these figures will eventually coalesce into one large party, but this will happen at a relatively late stage and just before the deadline for parties to hand in their final lists.

The group has not begun to politically organize, however; and while its members are fielding offers and speaking among themselves, they are still focused on the war effort. Cohen, specifically, has not yet decided whether he is interested in joining politics, and there is a fair chance that he will decide against it.

The new Left

The parties on the Left of Israel’s political spectrum, Labor and Meretz, infamously failed to join together ahead of the previous election, due mainly to Labor leader MK Merav Michaeli’s refusal to do so. Meretz ended up falling just short of the electoral threshold and its votes were wasted, which greatly contributed to Netanyahu’s victory.

However, with Labor falling well below the threshold in every poll and Merav Michaeli announcing that she would not run for the party leadership in the next election, a merger between the two parties is nearly assured and could end up being larger than the sum of its parts by attracting other groups into the new camp.

This was the platform of former general and Meretz MK Yair Golan ahead of the previous election in his race against Zehava Galon for the party’s leadership. Golan acted heroically on Oct. 7 and saved the lives of citizens in the Gaza border area, which drew widespread respect and contributed to his emergence as a leading candidate for the new camp.

Current Labor MKs Gilad Kariv and Efrat Rayten intend to run for head of Labor and eventually figure into the leadership of the camp as a whole. Another figure who said he was considering a run to lead Labor is former public security minister and Labor MK Omer Bar-Lev. A Channel 14 report this week even named Eisenkot as a possible leader of the Left-wing camp – a proposal that Michaeli publicly supported.

Other than Labor and Meretz, a formidable group to join this camp could be the Kaplan Force – a coalition of protest groups that spearheaded the opposition to the judicial reforms. Two figures especially stood out as potential candidates – Prof. Shikma Bressler, who led many of the mass highly visible protests against the reforms; and Moshe Radman, head of the hi-tech protest group. But, according to Klughaft, the move from mass protests, which benefit from diversification and decentralization, to centralized and institutionalized political parties is difficult, and the protest leaders may benefit from remaining outside of politics and instead providing logistical support to the current opposition parties.

In addition, the Left-wing camp will find it more difficult to gel than the Right-wing camp, since each one of its components is unique, Klughaft says.

“I think that what defines the engineering of this group is the time and complexity that is necessary to form it,” Klughaft says. “Each component sees itself as unique, and the tendency towards pluralization is very strong: Labor with its history; Meretz with its well-defined ideology; the Kaplan activists with their effectiveness and activeness; and Yair Golan as a security figure, who is pretty isolated in the Left-wing arena at this point,” Klughaft says.

“We should expect a long and tiresome process here, and mostly a process whose purpose is, rather than bringing votes, to ensure that this time votes are not wasted.” Either way, Klughaft says, the character of the next government will be decided by which side manages to pull voters across the political divide. This divide runs between Gantz and the “new-Right” camp – and the Left-wing edge of the spectrum is therefore less important.

Grassroots

The final focus group ahead of the election, or rather a collection of groups, are those that could grow from the bottom up. Two groups that stand out in this regard are reservists and young leaders.

Reservists are playing a central role in the war in Gaza. The same occurred during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and reservists were the ones then who spearheaded the opposition to those responsible for the setback at the start of the war.

Klughaft believes that the “reservist” brand will be a hot commodity in the next election, but that rather than a political party of reservists, each party will attempt to draft prominent reservists into their ranks. For example, some members of Achim Laneshek – the reservist group that stood out in its opposition to the judicial reform, but since the war’s outbreak has dedicated itself completely to the war effort, especially in terms of care for evacuees from the Gaza border area and the North – have already been approached by political parties, according to the group’s spokesperson.

A different grassroots reservist group calling itself Reservists until Victory formed in recent weeks in order to apply pressure on the government not to let up military pressure in the Gaza Strip. The group set up tents opposite the Kirya in Tel Aviv; outside of the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem; and at the site of the October 7 massacre at the Supernova festival near Re’im. But it is too early to talk politics, according to one of the groups founders, Gilad Ach, as many of its supporters are still fighting in Gaza.

Unlike the reservists, Klughaft believes that the other grassroots group that could organize into a political party are young leaders, who could focus on exemplary public service.

This would be a party of “go-getters,” Klughaft says, comprised of young leaders from local authorities, businesspeople who leave the comfort of private business and enter public service, and others, who promise “worthy appointments in public service and an end to a policy of appointing cronies.”

“This would be a party that would educate the public that professionalism precedes ideology and that professional management saves lives,” Klughaft says, adding that this group could run government ministries like start-ups, where human capital precedes the concept, as the “ability to carry out policy is more important than the diplomatic-security plans that in any case do not differ much from one to the other.”

This ticket is still up for grabs, Klughaft says, and its message could resonate widely after the trauma of October 7 and its aftermath. 