JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main opponent Gadi Eisenkot both oppose an independent Palestinian state, meaning next week’s election is unlikely to produce a sweeping shift in policies that have hampered a decades-old peace process.
Three years since the Hamas-led Oct 7, 2023, attacks, they also share hawkish positions towards Gaza, saying they would resume the war there if the militant group, whose founding charter calls for Israel’s destruction, does not disarm.
But they differ on their positions on settlements in the occupied West Bank, and are likely to rely on different coalition partners to form governments, which could broadly set the country on diverging paths.
Here is a look at the candidates’ views on the conflict with the Palestinians:
West Bank settlements
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in the West Bank, settling in territory Israel captured in a 1967 war, a practice nearly all countries consider illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
Netanyahu has presided over a rapid expansion of settlements, including small outposts in parts of the West Bank reserved for civil administration by the Palestinian Authority, where settlements are illegal under Israel’s own laws. Settlers have increasingly attacked Palestinians, and critics say the government has turned a blind eye to such violence.
Eisenkot favours settlement in principle, but says that it should comply with Israeli law. He opposes settlements built without authorisation, would dismantle outposts in areas where they are forbidden, and has pledged to prevent violence by settlers against Palestinians.
He also opposes a decision by the Netanyahu government to build in territory known as E1, which would bisect the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, which settlers say is intended to “bury” the possibility of a Palestinian state.
Palestinian self-rule
In a sign of how far Israeli politics has shifted to the right, Netanyahu and Eisenkot, along with the leaders of nearly all other Jewish-led parties, oppose the establishment of a future independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
This effectively repudiates the two-state solution that underpinned international peace negotiations for generations.
Netanyahu and Eisenkot both say Israel must retain ultimate security control over all territory between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.
There are, however, differences in their emphasis. Eisenkot’s position on limiting settlements in the West Bank would reserve territory where Palestinians now exercise civil self rule. Netanyahu’s coalition includes parties that openly call for Israel to fully annex occupied Palestinian land.
Gaza
Three years since Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel prompting an Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, and a year since a US-brokered ceasefire ended major combat there, Israeli troops now control around two-thirds of the enclave.
Nearly the entire population of more than 2 million Palestinians lives in the remaining third, mainly in tents or damaged buildings, still under the full political control of Hamas. US-brokered talks have so far failed to agree terms for Hamas to disarm, Israel to withdraw and reconstruction to begin under international auspices.
Both Eisenkot and Netanyahu say Israeli troops will not withdraw from Gaza until Hamas is disarmed, and that Israel is prepared to restart fighting to achieve this.
Eisenkot says the continued rule of Hamas in Gaza is a profound failure, and that within 18 months of taking office he would ensure that the Hamas administration had been replaced, either through a US-brokered plan or through military force.
Coalition partners
Netanyahu’s governing coalition now includes far-right Jewish nationalist groups led by settler activists Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who support full annexation of Palestinian land and are under sanctions in several Western countries for promoting settler violence.
Netanyahu also relies on ultra-Orthodox parties that seek exemptions from military service for Jewish religious students.
Opposition parties likely to be courted by Eisenkot for a future coalition to unseat Netanyahu include several right-wing groups, but none with leaders as extreme as Smotrich or Ben-Gvir. His supporters are mainly opposed to the military exemption for religious students, which probably rules out an alliance with the ultra-Orthodox.
To unseat Netanyahu, Eisenkot is likely to require the support of the Democrats, which include the rump of the centre-left Labour Party that dominated Israeli politics for generations but has dwindled as the country has shifted to the right. The Democrats are now the only prominent Jewish-led party that supports a two-state solution.
Eisenkot and Netanyahu have both said they would not form a government with parties primarily representing Israeli citizens of Palestinian descent, who comprise around a fifth of the population. REUTERS