The week that Naftali Bennett was sworn in to replace Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister in June 2021, I wrote confidently in this newspaper that having an American accent when speaking English had become a prerequisite for leading Israel, forever.
Bennett, who spent part of his childhood in Teaneck, New Jersey, and was raised by American parents, took over from Netanyahu, who had spent much of his childhood in suburban Philadelphia and then got a degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I didn’t know at the time that Bennett would be succeeded as prime minister by Yair Lapid, who spent his early childhood in London, where his father was posted as a correspondent for the Maariv newspaper.
I felt that with having Isaac Herzog, who went to high school in New York, as president, Israelis had finally realized that being part of a global world requires the mother-tongue-level English of a global statesman.
“The recent trend of Netanyahu and Bennett has made it likely that Israel will never go back, and American accents for its prime ministers are here to stay,” I wrote. “Having the right army insignia on their shoulders, of course, cannot hurt a politician. But if they cannot explain it in Jersey, they apparently won’t come to power in Jerusalem.”
I thought about that analysis over the past week, when Netanyahu’s staff clashed with prime ministerial candidate Gadi Eisenkot over his level of English.
Netanyahu adviser Yonatan Urich posted on X/Twitter a clip from a classic Jerusalem Post advertisement about learning English in the bathtub, followed by an excerpt from Eisenkot fumbling the language on a panel of the Washington Institute, mockingly calling him “Mr Hasbara (Public Diplomacy).”
Eisenkot responded by posting a video of Netanyahu endorsing the two-state solution as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat applauded, praising his English in the address, and writing that “all the present progressives in the world cannot erase history.”
He then posted English words that he said he understood much better than Netanyahu: Responsibility, service for all, Kiryat Shmona, and victory.
Eisenkot lived in Washington for several months after he completed his term as IDF chief of staff. He was a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, beginning in April 2019. His colleagues there told me that his English improved over time while he was there.
At the institute, Eisenkot wrote a 78-page report called “Guidelines for Israel’s National Security Strategy” in Hebrew and was involved with the English translation. He gave public presentations in English, albeit doing better with a script in front of him than when asked spontaneous questions on a panel.
US diplomat Dennis Ross, who was a distinguished fellow at the Institute, told me after Eisenkot left in 2020 that he was surprised by the general’s overall depth and grasp of issues beyond military matters.
“He developed a comprehensive strategy for Israel that accounted for all of the tools, not just the military tools,” Ross said. “I was struck by how sound the approach was. This was another side that showed how analytical and thoughtful he is. He can break down a problem and figure out how best to deal with it.”
When I asked the veteran mediator of talks with the Palestinians whether he saw Eisenkot as a potential peacemaker, Ross said, “I don’t see him being the kind of leader who makes decisions without thinking about their strategic consequences” and called him “not a freier,” using the Hebrew slang word for naive.
Former Post editor-in-chief David Makovsky, who directs the institute’s Project on the Middle East Peace Process, told me that while Eisenkot was in Washington, Israeli politicians attempted to draft him to run in the 2020 election, and he responded by sending them a picture of himself in a Hezbollah tunnel along with a message about lacking reception.
So, does an American accent really matter for a prime minister?
Now that the options for premier appear to be Netanyahu, Bennett, and Eisenkot, this election will determine whether my analysis back then was correct. Are we in an era where an American accent is more of an asset than military accolades?
When selecting the candidate to face off against Netanyahu, will his opponents choose someone with a similar background, such as Bennett or someone who aims to be the opposite of the current prime minister? Bennett said in his press conference on Monday that the recent election in Hungary proved that only a right-wing leader could unseat a long-serving right-wing prime minister.
What could be helpful to Eisenkot is the fact that when polls ask Israelis who their best prime minister was, Menachem Begin wins every time. While Bennett could say it is because of his right-wing policies and his ability to stand up to world leaders, Eisenkot could argue that it is because Begin is seen as Israel’s most modest and humblest leader.
Eisenkot was born in Tiberias and raised in Eilat by Moroccan immigrant parents who could not have taught him the English that Bennett learned from his late father Jim and his mother Myrna – who told me in the Knesset the day her son was sworn in that The Jerusalem Post was her “home newspaper.”
I wrote that week that the thick Israeli accent of Yitzhak Rabin and the Eastern European accent of Menachem Begin when speaking English were seen as making them more authentic, endearing them to the world.
“Had Begin said, ‘No more war, no more bloodshed’ with the Queen’s English – or Netanyahu’s – it would not have felt the same,” I wrote.
So could Eisenkot’s problems with English actually be an asset in speaking to world leaders who appear tired of Netanyahu talking back to them so fluently? That is what voters may end up having to decide in October.
But Netanyahu’s recent spat with US President Donald Trump could be an indication.
Trump called the prime minister “f***ing crazy” after the latter launched a strike on Beirut. After another strike on Lebanon’s capital, he said Netanyahu had “no f***ing judgment.”
When I did my IDF basic training at isolated bases in the South, most of the soldiers with me barely spoke any English, but I still heard the F word from them all the time. If the president of the United States speaks English like a soldier, not a statesman, maybe Eisenkot has an advantage over Netanyahu and Bennett after all.
The writer served as the chief political correspondent and analyst of The Jerusalem Post and has lectured about Israel in all 50 US states.
