Eisenkot Slams Netanyahu's Alternative Financing Plan as Admission of Economic Failure

Gadi Eisenkot, chairman of the Yashar party, has responded sharply to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's suggestion that Israel prepare alternative financial mechanisms. On Saturday, Eisenkot released a campaign video on X/Twitter in which the former IDF chief portrayed the plan as an admission that the prime minister had economically "destroyed the country."

The video opened with the warning "All of our money is at risk." It then showed clips from an earlier Channel 10 interview in which Netanyahu said Israel must "prepare for an alternative economy" in light of the numerous international sanctions the country faces.

A central theme of the video was Netanyahu's comments on blockchain technology. The prime minister acknowledged in the interview that digital finance would "certainly" form part of his plan. He added: "I've already asked for a plan to be prepared for that."

Eisenkot's campaign gave the concept a mocking label, "Bibicoin," and concluded that such a financial mechanism would "destroy Israel."

The video went further, claiming that an alternative system would produce "an economy like North Korea and Iran." It said the result would be "the end of high-tech, the end of healthcare, the end of security."

"We must not let him burn through our savings," the video said. It also raised a question about investment, asking how the global high-tech industry could put money into Israeli companies if digital currency were the only method available.

In a separate post on X, Eisenkot addressed the issue in a more personal tone. "Netanyahu himself admits that the policy he's leading and wants to lead Israel toward will result in international isolation and economic sanctions that will shake the economy and the market," he wrote. "This will be the collapse of our national security."

The exchange places Netanyahu's economic contingency thinking at the center of the political debate, with Eisenkot using the prime minister's own words from the Channel 10 interview as the basis for his criticism.