The Anti-Star: The drabness that became Eisenkot's advantage

When Gadi Eisenkot announced he was entering politics, I wrote that what he lacked was charisma. The man is drab, not exactly made of the stuff that leaders are supposed to be made of to translate well on screen and sweep voters along with them. However, what seemed like a disadvantage then has turned into an advantage.

After years of wars, fratricidal hatred, and trauma, we all feel that our personal space has been violated. The public wants someone who will see them, feel them, and even hug them, who will give them the feeling that it will be okay. And this is not necessarily because the public agrees with Eisenkot, or thinks his judgment was always correct. Nevertheless, he is soaring in the polls.

We like to think that we choose leaders based on performance and positions, but research in political psychology shows that voting in elections is more emotional than rational. Campaigners know this, and yet it seems that the images the candidates sell us belong to a different Israel.

Bennett and Lapid are photographed in black t-shirts that highlight muscles and try to project vitality — that is so October 6th. Bennett continues to talk a lot and zigzag, and Lapid, it seems, is politically burning himself with his own torch.

Liberman, for his part, is far from projecting healing and reconciliation. In the past, he was convicted by his own admission as part of a plea bargain for assaulting a child who had hit his son, and even said: "The Haredim together with Bibi on one wheelbarrow — to the dump." If one of the reasons the public is fed up with parts of the Likud is the style and verbal violence, Liberman is not the man who will bring the correction.

And Netanyahu tries to continue projecting that he is in control, and he should be given credit for that. Israel is today in a completely different strategic place than it was on the morning of October 7th. Netanyahu led the campaign that changed the balance of power in the region and severely damaged the Iranian threat. And the Abraham Accords that he signed paved a new path for relations with Arab countries.

But achievements do not erase fatigue, nor what happened on October 7th. History does not guarantee leaders that they will cut the ribbon at the end of the road. Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt and did not enter the Land. A leader can lead a people out of a huge crisis, and still be the man of the chapter that ends, not the one that begins.

Likud seems to be shrinking on its own. In Kabbalah, it is taught that contraction is a condition for growth. Perhaps it is time for Likud to be born again, to shake off the crude style and the stars who think they are bigger than the party. In the past, when Arik Sharon left and founded Kadima, Netanyahu remained with 12 Knesset members, rebuilt the party, and returned it to power. It will be interesting to see who will take the reins and rebuild the party.

Amidst all this noise, precisely the man who is the least of a "star" — Eisenkot — is our mirror. After years in which the Israeli public looked for a strong leader who promises security, now it seems it is drawn to someone it feels comfortable with. In this case, the comfortable man was also a former Chief of Staff.