Eisenkot's Beach Confrontation and the Fracturing of Israeli Politics

A right-wing activist's question at Metzitzim Beach exposes the raw edges of a campaign season defined by October 7 grief and coalition fractures.

Eisenkot's Beach Confrontation and the Fracturing of Israeli Politics — At Metzitzim Beach today, Yashar party chairman Gadi Eisenkot refused to hear a question from right-wing activist Mordechai David, telling him, "I only cooperate with those who served in the army - go serve and come back to me."[^1] David, who earlier this week waited outside a house party to block former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen, was removed by police.[^1] The exchange distilled a campaign where military service has become the currency of political legitimacy, and where the grief of October 7 is weaponized in public confrontations. That grief surfaced again in Jerusalem, where Nissim Louk, father of Shani Louk who was murdered at the Nova music festival, confronted Likud activists during a visit by Transportation Minister Miri Regev to the Mahane Yehuda market. "You caused October 7, 3,000 murdered because of you. You funded Hamas," he said.[^3] The scene echoed the beach: citizens demanding accountability from leaders they blame for the disaster, while those leaders retreat into partisan red lines. Meanwhile, the coalition's internal fissures deepen. Shaul Meridor, a Likud figure, told Walla, "We will form a government with more than 61 seats; if not, we have talks with many people from many parties, even on the other side. They're fed up with what they see; they can't contain it."[^5] He added, "What's left of Likud is just the name, and it shames what it once was."[^5] Defense Minister Israel Katz met yesterday with 'Likud Women' in his office at the Kirya, a gesture that reads as shoring up support amid reports that "All Katz cares about is videos. Netanyahu doesn't count him." The question hanging over this campaign: can any party channel the public's fury into governance, or will it remain a politics of accusation? Holocaust survivors, workplace deaths, and the cost of divorce — Eli Mandel, one of Israel's oldest Holocaust survivors and a founder of Kibbutz Mabbikim, died at 104.[^1] Born in March 1922 in Targu Mures, Transylvania, he survived forced labor in Komorna, Slovakia, and immigrated in 1948.[^1] In Riga, historian Margers Vestermanis, who was imprisoned in the Riga Ghet