Neither Gadi Eisenkot nor Naftali Bennett understand, nor want to understand, that nothing good will happen here as long as the Palestinian problem is not resolved. If so, then what can change?
By Gideon Levy, Reposted from Haaretz, April 15, 2026
What will change when Naftali Bennett or Gadi Eisenkot replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? Less than we imagine.
Itamar Ben-Gvir may no longer be the minister of national security, and that’s a lot, but the next government will not rescind his sadistic decrees at the Prison Service, for example. Security prisoners will continue to die of hunger or of torture in the term of the upcoming government of enlightenment. Bound and dying they will lie in their cells, and no one in the new government will dare ameliorate their conditions.
The next government will not be more humane than its predecessors in its approach to the Palestinians, it won’t have the courage for that. Imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti and any hope he engenders will continue to wither in prison.
It’s doubtful that the next “government of change” will dare annul the draconian laws passed by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The “nation-state law” will not be repealed, the death penalty for terrorists will not be shelved and hundreds of outposts recklessly set up on Palestinian land in recent years will not be evacuated.
Who exactly would evacuate them? Former head of the Judea and Samaria Council Naftali Bennett? Former commander of the IDF’s Judea and Samaria division Gadi Eisenkot? The government of change will not impound even one Ranger pickup truck used by the so-called “hilltop youth” in the occupied territories. The militias will not be disarmed. The stealers of land, the robbers of shepherds and the murderers of farmers may be stopped. Bennett and Eisenkot will want to take the occupation back to its good (but despairing) old days, but the genie has already escaped from the bottle.
Israel will continue to act like an arrogant and pompous empire. The dawn of a new day will arrive and it will continue to bomb throughout the Middle East, to violate the sovereignty of all the countries surrounding it, to assassinate ranks of leaders and surround itself with a “security zone” while continuing to conquer more territory for “security” reasons.
Israel’s megalomania did not begin with Netanyahu and will not cease with his downfall. It is already imprinted deep in the country’s DNA. Israeli soldiers will continue to wander across Lebanon without knowing to what end, and Israeli pilots will continue with airstrikes in the Gaza Strip and in Syria, possibly in Iran, without having any idea what the purpose of their missions is. Eisenkot and Bennett will be in favor of this. After all, they’ve been in favor of all the wars.
Israel wants Netanyahu without the corruption, just like Hungary wanted Orban without the corruption, and it will get its wish, be it the modest and upright chief of staff of the occupation Eisenkot, or the annexationist with the polished English, Bennett.
Israel’s official state aircraft, “Wing of Zion,” will go to the dump, the prime minister will hold a press conference, he’ll meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Hanna Eisenkot or Gilat Bennett will not be the country’s “First Lady.” Pink champagne won’t flow like water and no one will smoke cigars at the public’s expense or at all.
Bennett and Eisenkot will show humility, what a sense of relief awaits us. All those annoying trivial issues that drove the combative media mad as they criticized Netanyahu will be fixed, but only those.
On the larger scale, no essential change will take place. One cannot expect anything else from Eisenkot, who joined the IDF 11 years after the beginning of the occupation, continuing to serve for 41 years in an army that is mostly busy with the violent maintenance of the occupation, or from Bennett, who replaced Pinchas Wallerstein as the top settler functionary. These two have not changed since those days.
Neither of them understand, nor want to understand, that nothing good will happen here as long as the Palestinian problem is not resolved. This is the last issue on their minds.
For both of them, a reality in which two nations live here, one the superior one, the other inferior, is normality. No other reality could exist. It’s normal for them for the Palestinians to continue being deprived of rights forever. They think it normal that in the name of security Israel is permitted everything. Both of them worship the army and cheer wars. If so, what can change?
Yes, there once was a Frederik Willem de Klerk and a Nelson Mandela in South Africa. There is no Palestinian Mandela (maybe with the exception of the incarcerated Barghouti). Bennett and Eisenkot will never be the Israeli de Klerks. They are already too tainted.
Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. Levy writes opinion pieces and a weekly column for the newspaper Haaretz that often focus on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
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