Who is Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu’s main challenger in Israel’s elections?
Election
Originally published by Kahawatungu — Read the original article →
Election process
One of Gadi Eisenkot’s strongest electoral assets is a simple, undeniable fact: He is not Benjamin Netanyahu. And for many voters in one of the most critical elections in Israel’s history, that may well be enough.
But one of his other assets became the center of a political firestorm when Yinon Magal, a prominent TV host widely considered a mouthpiece for Benjamin Netanyahu, blasted the prime minister’s main rival. In a series of race-baiting remarks, Magal called Eisenkot a “monkey” of “a Mizrahi-Moroccan” heritage managed by “Ashkenazi elites.”
The remarks struck at longstanding inequalities between Jews of European origin and Jews hailing from the Middle East, setting off a political and media firestorm. Magal later claimed he did not mean to mock Eisnekot’s ethnic origins; rather, he was using an underworld term for a frontman managed from behind the scenes. Even Netanyahu, not known for contrition, condemned the remarks.