Leading figures from the Israeli opposition have used the country’s prestigious Herzliya Conference to lay out their policy agendas, but analysts and observers noted that their foreign policy positions differ little from those of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling far-right coalition.None of the three main opposition figures – former military Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett, both former prime ministers – offered attendees at Reichman University on Wednesday much criticism of Israel’s recent wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listInstead, they chose to criticise Netanyahu for the manner in which those campaigns had been conducted and for what they frame as his subservience to United States President Donald Trump, who seems to have prevented Israel from carrying on its wars in Lebanon and Iran at full intensity.Addressing the conference, Bennett – who will run jointly with Lapid at the next elections – limited his criticism of the Israeli government to his insistence that Israel would fight its wars better: “After a thousand days of war, the truth must be told: Hamas is rearming in the south, Hezbollah is growing stronger, attacking our soldiers and threatening our citizens, and the head of the octopus, the regime in Tehran, remains standing,” he said.Eisenkot, who polls show to be one of the favourites to replace Netanyahu when elections are called later this year, was equally damning of the …
