The Yashar (Hebrew for ‘straight’) party has garnered widespread support as per the opinion polls reported by Israeli media outlets, some of which place the party ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. As Israel gears up for its parliamentary elections on October 27, a one-year-old party has emerged as a significant contender.
Yashar consistently emerged as a leading party While the polls did not point to a clear winner. Gadi Eisenkot, who leads the centrist party and is a former member of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet, projects himself as everything that Mr. Netanyahu is not. Mr. While Mr. Eisenkot has promised strategic wars rather than endless ones while maintaining Israeli sentiments on Palestine’s two-state solution and Iran, Mr. Netanyahu is losing his appeal amid mounting challenges, including corruption charges , allegations of negligence regarding warnings of the Hamas attack, diplomatic tensions and declining ratings. After that, the figure of Eisenkot, a trustworthy former Chief of Staff and a bereaved father (and uncle) who projects something straightforward (as per his party name), by contrast to Netanyahu. The mentioned goals include ensuring the existence of the state of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people while preserving its character as a Jewish and democratic state and strengthening Israel’s national security and positioning it as a strong regional power. Its domestic goals include strengthening the IDF, ensuring that every citizen serves in the military or national service, reducing social gaps within the country, and strengthening governance and solving economic issues such as the high cost of living. The road ahead for the party is not without obstacles. Scheindlin.
In most projections, Yashar led with at least 20 of 120 seats in Knesset, Israel’s parliament, while Likud trailed behind. Channel 12 News and Channel 13 News put Yashar at 23 and 22 seats, while Likud followed with 20 and 19 seats respectively. Yashar was projected to win 25 seats while Likud trailed with 19, according to the poll published by Maariv. Eisenkot, who held his first electoral meeting less than three months ago on June 30, is now as popular as the Prime Minister. This growing support for Yashar and its leader is strongly buttressed by the public sentiment following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, which has emerged as one of the central issues for voters. They supported Gantz in 2023-24, then they supported Bennett in 2025, then Eisenkot seemed like a credible, fresh politician who could win, so they shifted to him. His party’s 10-point goals, published on its online platform, carry a focus on both national and domestic issues.
A policy fellow at the Mitvim Institute and a strategy consultant and public opinion expert for political and social campaigns in Israel, “The main aspect driving Yashar is the voters — the same specific constituency that is centrist-leaning right, security-minded, patriotic, but not far-right or extremist in Israeli terms, according to Dahlia Scheindlin. “Both coalition math and Eisenkot’s inexperience will be a problem for the coalition-building/bargaining phase, and for keeping such a coalition together,” explained Ms.
