By Amotz Asa-El

 

ULTIMATELY, they will get it.

Fielding four aspiring prime ministers, the opposition’s leaders will have to crown Gadi Eisenkot (above, last decade, as Chief of General Staff) as their joint candidate. Not because he is better equipped to govern, but because he is better equipped to win.

Yes, polls are tricky, but the gap Eisenkot has opened, suggesting he is nearly twice as popular as Naftali Bennett, will become unambiguous if sustained for another month.

Conceding this will not come easily for the other three.

For Bennett, Eisenkot is a political novice who has not a fraction of the experience he has earned as prime minister and, before that, as minister of defense, education, and economy. The same goes for Avigdor Lieberman, who headed six odd ministries, including defense, where he was Eisenkot’s superior.

As for Yair Golan, he brings no such political experience, but to him Eisenkot is an equal, the fellow infantryman he succeeded as Deputy Chief of General Staff.

Even so, all three must realize that Eisenkot brings what none of them has – a symbol of the agony this country has endured and of the hope that it craves. Having lost in Gaza a son and two nephews, Eisenkot personifies our suffering. And having risen to the IDF’s command as the son of immigrants from Morocco he instills pride in many Likud-voters’ hearts.

Bennett, Lieberman, and Golan surely know all this. They must therefore think not how to defy Eisenkot’s electoral gravity, but how to join it. And the way to do this it to present with him a shadow cabinet, a team that will display collegiality, consensus, and drive.

 

IN Britain the shadow cabinet is a serious thing that sometimes makes headlines. In 1968, for instance, shadow secretary of defense Enoch Powell was fired, after delivering a racist speech. And in 1931 Winston Churchill resigned as shadow Chancelor of the Exchequer after the Tories decided to back the Labor government’s plan for self-government in India.

Monitoring and critiquing a particular minister’s work, the shadow minister enjoys a higher public profile. Should he or she replace the minister they shadow, they will not have to study from scratch their ministry’s resources and tasks.

Despite its utility, Israel never had a shadow cabinet, other than one anecdotal attempt, by Tommy Lapid in 2005, which fell apart several weeks after its announcement when Lapid and his party, Shinuy, were trounced in that year’s elections.

That doesn’t mean it was a bad idea. It’s a good idea any day, but for today’s opposition it is vital, because to win, it must display collective harmony, pragmatism and purpose. That is how swing voters will be convinced that the opposition means business, and can lead this traumatized country to better times.

Who, then, should be shadow minister of what?

 

THE shadow cabinet should only assign six senior ministries’ hopeful ministers. Trying to man the full list, besides being impractical, would imply that the many unnecessary ministries in the current government are necessary.

The shadow ministers’ portfolios should be defense, foreign, finance, education, justice, and internal security. The way these agencies are managed will largely shape our departure from the past three years’ catastrophes.

Defense should go to Lieberman. Having already served in that position, he knows the defense system well. Moreover, he will work well with Eisenkot, as the two already did last decade.

Moreover, Lieberman thinks systemically, a merit he displayed as defense minister, when he argued that the IDF must build from scratch a missile corps, with the kind of resources and independence that existing forces like artillery, engineering, or the armored corps have.

As an idea it may or may not be right, but raising it shows that as defense minister he will bring the kind of broad, long-range outlook that an Israeli defense minister must possess, and the current defense minister lacks. After nearly three years of continuous fighting, the defense system needs the kind of comprehensive rethinking that Lieberman can inspire and oversee.

Foreign affairs should go Bennett. His awareness of Israel’s image crisis is deep, his understanding of the media is thorough, his English is impeccable, and he has what it takes to reboot the foreign service, which so sorely needs new resources, direction, and esprit de corps.

Finance should go, for the first time in Israel’s history, to a woman. There are two choices, at least. One is economist Karen Turner, a former director-general of the finance ministry and the ministry of transportation. Another is Orit Farkash-Hacohen, a lawyer who headed the Electric Authority before turning to politics and serving, successively, as minister of science, tourism, and strategic affairs. Now running with Eisenkot, she may have an edge over Turner, who is running with Bennett and has never been a politician.

The shadow education minister should be Yair Lapid. The revolution that our ossified school system begs may well be delivered by a man who before turning to politics at age 50 was a successful cultural entrepreneur. He owes this ministry’s Kafkaesque bureaucracy nothing, and will think out of the box.

The home security minister should be Yair Golan. The man who would have headed the IDF if not for his big mouth, is actually an able manager who can fight the anarchism – Arab, Bedouin, ultra-Orthodox and ultra-nationalist – that Itamar Ben-Gvir tolerated and inspired.

Lastly, the shadow justice minister should be Matan Kahana. An observant air-force colonel who as the previous government’s minister of religious affairs rattled that system – he is a right-wing lawyer who can help deliver a constitution by broad consensus.

Introducing such a team now will convince voters that the humble and inexperienced Eisenkot will head an experienced and purposeful team that will collectively fix what its predecessors broke, and heal what they wounded.

Jerusalem Post 7 August  2026