{"id":483842,"date":"2026-06-09T12:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T12:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/483842\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T12:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T12:13:11","slug":"gadi-eisenkot-challenges-benjamin-netanyahu-to-debate-responds-to-likud-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/483842\/","title":{"rendered":"Gadi Eisenkot challenges Benjamin Netanyahu to debate, responds to Likud video"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yashar Party leader <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/politics-and-diplomacy\/article-898437\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gadi Eisenkot<\/a> challenged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a public debate ahead of the upcoming elections, after the premier\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/politics-and-diplomacy\/article-898724\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Likud<\/a> party released a video claiming he would be unable to form a government with the support of Arab parties.<\/p>\n<p>Eisenkot\u2019s Yashar has risen in the polls in recent weeks, coming close to being the largest party in the opposition bloc seeking to replace Netanyahu. In most polls, he falls not far behind former prime ministers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/politics-and-diplomacy\/article-898398\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Naftali Bennett<\/a> and Yair Lapid&#8217;s Together Party, which trails the Likud.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">The video published by the Likud claims that Eisenkot has no way to form a government without the Arab parties. The clip shows Arab party leaders calling for a Palestinian state, and adds that without the support of Hadash-Tal Party leader Ayman Odeh and Ra\u2019am Party leader Mansour Abbas, there \u201cis no Eisenkot.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">In response, Eisenkot directly challenged the prime minister, saying, &#8220;Netanyahu, enough with the incitement videos&#8230; set a date and a place. Come to a public debate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">\u2018We&#8217;ll answer the public&#8217;s questions. A true leader speaks with the public,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Parties in the opposition bloc have spoken against forming a government with the Arab parties.<\/p>\n<p>Eisenkot has vowed to conduct a state commission of inquiry into the government&#8217;s handling of the October 7 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/article-898840\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hamas<\/a> attacks if elected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">General elections are set to take place no later than October 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yashar Party leader Gadi Eisenkot challenged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a public debate ahead of the upcoming&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[147752,49,41125,955,42,21141,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-483842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-2026-israeli-elections","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-debate","tag-gadi-eisenkot","tag-headlines","tag-likud","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}