Whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or his chief opposition emerges victorious from the Israeli elections, the country’s foreign policy–and its impact on the United States–is not expected to change much. 

This is because the main dividing lines in the elections this year are not about Israel’s actions in the Middle East, the country’s security or military policies, or even whether Jerusalem should continue to take a hard line toward Iran and its proxies across the region. 

Gadi Eisenkot, the leader of the Israeli Yashar party and Netanyahu’s main opponent, largely views these issues in the same light as the current government. In fact, Eisenkot once served under Netanyahu as the chief of staff to the Israel Defense Forces and his party joined Netanyahu in a unity government after the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks on Israel by Hamas. 

When polls closed on Tuesday, exit polling showed that Netanyahu’s Likud party and its allies will likely lose the majority in the Israeli parliament, called the Knesset. However, Eisenkot’s party and its allies were also projected to come up short of the required 61-seat majority. Now, both parties will begin the process of attempting to hammer out a coalition that can secure a majority. If they fail, another election will likely be called.  

Netanyahu and Eisenkot often sing from the same choir book on security issues 

Though Netanyahu has centered his campaign on warning that his opposition would support the formation of a Palestinian state and weaken Israel’s security, Eisenkot’s policy is actually remarkably similar, with only a few minor differences. 

Eisenkot, for example, supports the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a signature policy of Netanyahu. He has, however, moderated his position by vowing to crack down on Israeli settler violence against Palestinian residents of the West Bank. Eisenkot has, according to Haaretz, also said he would curtail settlement in some areas into which Netanyahu controversially expanded it. 

Like Netanyahu, he also opposes a Palestinian state. “I am adamantly opposed to a foreign army between the river and the sea,” Eisenkot recently said in an interview on Israeli radio, referring to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the two features that bound Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank in the east and west, respectively. 

Holding the same views regarding Iran and Israeli security

Eisenkot and his allies “are basically saying the same thing in a more elegant way,” Tamar Hermann, senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem, told The Wall Street Journal. “Their security agenda, except for the West Bank, is not substantially different from that of the right.” 

On the Iran war, one of the issues with the most potential to impact the United States, Eisenkot has promised to maintain a tough line against Tehran, and in some ways calls for going even further than his opponent. 

In the campaign, Netanyahu has reiterated his ultimate goal of toppling the regime in Tehran, arguing that it will rebuild after the war and again threaten Israel. “As long as the Iranian regime is there, they’ll reconstitute themselves,” Netanyahu told The Jerusalem Post.

While Eisenkot has criticized Netanyahu’s goal of regime change in Tehran as unrealistic, he has warned that the joint U.S.-Israeli attacks have not achieved Iranian denuclearization. To solve this, he suggested that the U.S. declare a “kill zone” around Iranian nuclear sites enforced by a promise to strike any Iranian personnel or forces attempting to approach them. 

At his party’s launch, Eisenkot said the conflict “must end in the destruction or dismantling of the Iranian nuclear programme,” but warned that Iran currently still possesses highly enriched uranium that it could one day turn into nuclear weapons. 

Despite the policy similarities, U.S. President Donald Trump has thrown his weight behind Netanyahu. Earlier this month, Trump endorsed him, calling him a “Great Warrior Prime Minister” and partner in “combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran.” 

Trump added, “​​If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so. Bibi Netanyahu has been Strong, Brave, and Brilliant in the face of tremendous opposition, including that coming from even Israel, itself.”

Both agree that Hamas remains the governing authority in the Gaza Strip

On the Gaza war, both Netanyahu and Eisenkot agree that Hamas must be disarmed and removed from governing the strip. However, Eisenkot has argued that Netanyahu has failed to implement the Trump peace plan, leaving Hamas armed and still in control of parts of the strip. 

“Never before has an Israeli government been given so much room to maneuver and so much legitimacy, both from the Israeli public and the international community, only to suffer such a resounding strategic failure. Three years after the October 7 massacre, Hamas remains the governing authority in the Gaza Strip, armed, rearming and rebuilding its military capabilities,” Eisenkot said. 

Eisenkot says that he will work with the United States to implement the plan, but that if Hamas is not disarmed and removed from power within 18 months, then Israel would act to remove the threat itself, resuming the conflict that has stalled since the U.S.-brokered ceasefire last year. 

Candidates diverged on aftermath of Hamas's murderous October 7 attack

While their foreign policies are strikingly similar, the Netanyahu government’s handling of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas and affiliated Palestinian terrorists has become a key domestic issue in the lead-up to the elections. 

Eisenkot promised to establish a state commission of inquiry to investigate the alleged failures that led to the Oct. 7 attacks. 

“We must not adopt an attitude that treats failures as inevitable,” he said. “There is a way to prevent the next disaster. We will make courageous decisions, formulate a national strategy, investigate October 7 through a state commission of inquiry and implement the lessons learned. This is not a luxury. It is an urgent security necessity.”