2 Right-Wingers Who Broke With Netanyahu Could Bid to Unseat Him

Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff for Israel’s military, will likely get the most votes of those hoping to succeed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a pivotal national election on Tuesday.

But that doesn’t mean that only Mr. Eisenkot could lead a government that unseats the longtime leader.

Depending on how Israel’s complex coalition-building process shakes out, at least two other veteran politicians could also find themselves vying for the prime minister’s chair: Avigdor Liberman, a hard-right former defense minister, and Naftali Bennett, a onetime prime minister who has fiercely argued in favor of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Opinion polls in recent months have suggested that Mr. Bennett’s party will secure around a dozen seats in Israel’s 120-member Parliament, or Knesset, while Mr. Liberman’s will collect closer to eight. (Mr. Eisenkot’s party could rack up over 20 seats, according to pre-election polls.)

The political evolutions of Mr. Bennett and Mr. Liberman offer a case study in how Mr. Netanyahu has polarized Israel during his long tenure. The two men should be ideal political partners with the prime minister, as they share many of his hawkish views. Both have worked as advisers to Mr. Netanyahu in the past and even campaigned on his behalf.

Yet they have long since broken with the Israeli leader, and now accuse him of corruption, abuses of power and a willingness to cut deals with extremists in order to remain in charge. Mr. Netanyahu is currently on trial for corruption in three separate but interlocking cases; he has denied all wrongdoing.

A veteran of Israeli politics, Mr. Liberman was born in the Soviet Union and leads the right-wing Yisrael Beitenu party. His base is among the hundreds of thousands of Russian-speaking Jews who similarly emigrated to Israel from the former Communist bloc.

Mr. Liberman lives in the West Bank settlement of Nokdim, and takes a hard-line view on security issues. At one point during the war in Gaza, Mr. Liberman called for Israel to halt all aid, including water, to Palestinians there, even as the enclave faced a humanitarian crisis.

Mr. Bennett served as prime minister from 2021 to 2022, during the sole hiatus in Mr. Netanyahu’s premiership since 2009. Though his party secured only seven seats in Parliament in the preceding election, Mr. Bennett leveraged the opposition’s desire to unseat Mr. Netanyahu and he went from being kingmaker to king.

In office, however, Mr. Bennett presided over a fragile, ideologically discordant coalition that ranged from his right-wing Yamina party to Raam, an Islamist party of Arab citizens of Israel. Many of his voters saw his decision to join with left-wing and Arab parties as a betrayal, and as some of his own lawmakers defected, his government collapsed.

Now, Mr. Bennett is running in alliance with Yair Lapid, a centrist who succeeded him as prime minister in the anti-Netanyahu government. In addition to holding large campaign rallies, Mr. Bennett has released videos of himself holding lengthy, impromptu debates with right-wing voters in the streets and around cafe and restaurant tables.

In this election, both Mr. Liberman and Mr. Bennett have focused much of their campaign messaging on Israel’s ultra-Orthodox minority.

The ultra-Orthodox population is 14 percent of Israel’s total but growing rapidly, and they receive far more state benefits than they contribute in taxes, thanks largely to Mr. Netanyahu, who has relied on their support to stay in power.

Ultra-Orthodox religious students are also largely exempt from mandatory military service. During the war in Gaza, religious and secular Israelis alike were furious at what they saw as a powerful minority shirking the wartime burden.

Mr. Bennett has promised to end what he calls an ultra-Orthodox “state within a state” and compel them to participate in national service.

Mr. Liberman, for his part, has inveighed against what he calls an ultra-Orthodox political push for “us to send our children to the army, to do reserve duty, to work, and pay taxes, while they build their own state.” He has accused them of “trying to dismantle the country.”