Ofer Winter’s disciplined political launch threatens to upend the right-wing bloc

Brig. Gen. (res.) Ofer Winter seemingly left the launch event for his new political party, People of Israel, far more fired up than when he arrived. I caught Winter on his way out for a brief conversation. Outside the venue, prominent Likud field activist Rami Ben-Yehuda could be heard loudly vilifying the former IDF commander through a megaphone he had brought from home. Ben-Yehuda frequently acts as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political hatchet man. Netanyahu himself recently released a video elaborating on how Winter’s voters would essentially be throwing their ballot slips in the trash. Meanwhile, Natan Eshel – Netanyahu’s disgraced former chief of staff, who remains his most trusted back-channel fixer and mouthpiece – has been relentlessly sending out messages declaring that Winter is a “false messiah” doing MK Avigdor Liberman’s bidding, and therefore poses a grave danger to the right-wing bloc. “You have to be an idiot not to understand that Winter will join the left-wing bloc,” Eshel wrote. “Apparently, he bears a grudge against Netanyahu because he wasn’t promoted to major general and wasn’t appointed his military secretary. He was former defense minister Liberman’s military secretary and is still aligned with him.” Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Newsletter email address Get it By signing up, you agree to the terms Winter hears this rhetoric, and it only fuels his motivation. “People shoot at me all the time, including in far more dangerous places,” he told The Times of Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses voting for new and small right-wing parties in a video posted on his official Telegram account on August 24, 2026 (Video in Hebrew, with English subtitles added by ToI) Asked whether he intends to go all the way to the election, even if he risks falling below the electoral threshold, Winter was unequivocal. “When I attack, I attack,” he replied, immediately adding of his own volition: “If they had let me finish Gaza, I would have finished Gaza.” In other words, Winter is not folding. Anyone who attended Tuesday’s gathering at Jerusalem’s Shalva National Center understood that he did not launch this venture in order to retreat. This was a genuine election campaign kickoff – a stark contrast to the somewhat sterile political launches recently held by figures like Yoaz Hendel, Chili Tropper, Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein. Advertisement Winter spent at least a year meticulously planning the rollout, missing absolutely nothing. The event ran with strict military discipline: the new party’s candidates were carefully curated, its hard-right message was delivered without flinching, the staging and multimedia were highly polished, and the packed crowd eagerly embraced the People of Israel campaign. The underlying message was clear: Here is a fresh party entirely untainted by the catastrophic failures of the October 7 Hamas massacre, offering a new, high-quality and untraditional leadership bearing a promise of change and absolute victory. We have not seen anything quite like it in this election cycle. The launch of the new People of Israel party, led by Ofer Winter (center), in Jerusalem, August 25, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90) Winter himself sharpens this message and apologizes for absolutely nothing. Quite the opposite. He seems to have waited years for this precise moment to settle accounts with the military superior who refused to promote him – former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot – and the one who ultimately pushed him out of the military — former IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi. For years, Winter served as both a hero to the hard right and a lightning rod for the defense establishment. By seamlessly blending messianic religious rhetoric with military command, he became the poster boy for the “religification” of the IDF – deeply alarming a secular general staff that viewed his ideology as a threat to the military’s state-oriented ethos. A highly charismatic figure, Winter generates palpable buzz wherever he goes. His speech on Tuesday was essentially a sweeping rebuke of those very defense officials who refused to tolerate his criticism, and who ultimately found themselves subscribing to the strategic conception that brought the October 7 disaster upon Israel. Nor does Winter apologize for the famous, biblically infused dispatch he sent to his soldiers during the 2014 Gaza war, Operation Protective Edge. Serving as commander of the Givati Brigade at the time, Winter framed the conflict as a religious war against a “blasphemous” enemy, echoing the days of David and Goliath. Advertisement Then-Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter attends a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting at the Knesset, on October 22, 2018. (Miriam Alster/Flash90) On Tuesday, Winter proudly recounted that before leading his Givati troops into past battles in Lebanon, he recited the foundational Jewish prayer with them: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Winter’s electoral slate is indeed surprising, particularly when compared to the familiar faces populating other right-wing lists. The top 10 candidates took the stage one by one on Tuesday at the Shalva Center, following highly polished introductory videos for each. Winter’s No. 2 is Yoseph Haddad, an Arab Christian and prominent pro-Israel media personality who has already folded his own nascent party, Brave Israel, into Winter’s faction. Haddad boasted on stage of creating “the first Jewish-Arab party of the right.” Winter is running on the premise of a diverse right-wing list that features activists from various fields and every sector of society, deliberately avoiding narrow religious or ethnic labels. This inclusive, populist approach is exactly why he chose the name People of Israel. It also marks a key distinction between his party and factions like Otzma Yehudit or Religious Zionism, which cater almost exclusively to religious, hardline national-religious and traditional voters. Ofer Winter (left) and Yoseph Haddad at the launch of the new People of Israel party in Jerusalem, August 25, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90) Winter also recruited Laly Derai from the West Bank settlement of Eli, a prominent activist in the campaign for equal military service for all Israelis. Derai lost her son, Master Sgt. (res.) Saadia Derai, who fell in combat in Gaza’s Zeitoun neighborhood in June 2024. Other candidates on the slate include former Channel 13 journalist Netali Shem Tov from the northern border town of Metula; Sigal Kraunik of Kibbutz Be’eri, whose husband Arik served as the community’s security coordinator and was killed fighting Hamas terrorists on October 7; Davidi Ben Zion, deputy head of the Samaria Regional Council; Col. (res.) Eli Gino, a former commander of the Givati reconnaissance unit; and Aviv Ezra, founder of the Victory Generation movement. All the candidates delivered messages tailored to a broad national consensus: honest leadership, shared sacrifice, equal sharing of the national burden, education, and absolute victory in war. Advertisement Winter himself was the most militant of the group, which makes it difficult to understand the basis of Netanyahu’s stated fear that Winter might eventually join the anti-Netanyahu “change bloc.” Laly Derai (right) at the launch of the new People of Israel party, led by Ofer Winter, in Jerusalem, August 25, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90) “They are not going to teach me what the right wing is,” Winter fumed. “My family was evacuated from Gush Katif [during the 2005 Gaza Disengagement]. All my life, I have personally paid a heavy price for the right-wing positions I expressed. We are a clear and unequivocal part of the right-wing camp. We will do everything possible to establish the broadest possible right-wing government. We are not confused. We know exactly where we came from and where we are going.” Winter’s proposed solutions are entirely incompatible with the positions of the center-left change bloc. He openly identifies with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s “decisive victory” plan for the Palestinians – a 2017 blueprint that calls for fully annexing the West Bank and offering Palestinians a choice between accepting Israeli rule without national rights, emigrating, or facing military defeat – and, echoing National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, argues that “migration is the only solution for Gaza.” Incidentally, throughout the entire launch event, not a single rival politician from either the right or the left was mentioned by name. Only Haddad attacked remarks made by The Democrats chairman Yair Golan, and even then, he did so without naming him. I spoke on Tuesday with several attendees at the launch. Ran Feingold, Winter’s campaign chief in Ramat Gan and a member of the national-religious community, told me he had intended to vote for Naftali Bennett – until Bennett joined forces with Yair Lapid to form the B’Yachad party. For Feingold, Winter represents the ideal solution. Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, right, and former prime minister Naftali Bennett appear at a press conference announcing their joint slate, called B’Yachad (Together), in Herzliya, central Israel, April 26, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90) “I’m an old-school National Religious Party voter, and Ofer Winter is the old National Religious Party,” Feingold told The Times of Israel. “He may not be Yosef Burg or Zevulun Hammer [the historic, pragmatic leaders of the old, moderate National Religious Party], but he also won’t send his Knesset members and activists to smash a monument in an Arab village under military protection.” Feingold was referring to a widely condemned incident earlier on Tuesday in which Religious Zionism MK Zvi Sukkot smashed a “martyrs memorial” erected by Palestinians in the West Bank village of Madama. Roni Shabtai, a former left-back for the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club, came to the event through his Jerusalem neighbor, Lt. Col. (res.) Moshe Keinan. Keinan previously served as the rabbi of the Givati Brigade and is a longtime admirer of Winter. Shabtai has heard Winter speak numerous times over the past year and offers an explanation for Netanyahu’s fear of the retired general. “Winter wants to be prime minister. Period,” Shabtai told The Times of Israel. “Netanyahu knows that if Winter is in the government, there will be no games. With him, there are no compromises on security. He isn’t a politician. He won’t let Netanyahu breathe. He cuts straight through.” Advertisement Ofer Winter at the launch of his new People of Israel party in Jerusalem, August 25, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90) As things stand, Winter and his new party are a massive thorn in Netanyahu’s side. If they cross the electoral threshold, it will most likely come at the direct expense of Smotrich and his Religious Zionism party, which could be left entirely out of the Knesset with tens of thousands of right-wing votes wasted. In that scenario, Netanyahu could also find himself facing Winter at full parliamentary strength, holding the balance of power. Conversely, if Winter refuses to merge with another party and fails to cross Israel’s 3.25 percent electoral threshold (roughly four seats), every single ballot cast for him will be discarded. He could then burn tens of thousands of critical votes for the right-wing bloc – a mathematical nightmare that could easily cost Netanyahu the entire election. All that remains is to see how Netanyahu responds once the next batch of polls is published, and whether he can somehow rein in the charging horse that is Ofer Winter after hurling so much political venom at him in recent weeks. Winter, as he made abundantly clear on Tuesday, will not stop attacking – even if everyone is shooting at him, from both the right and the left. Help us report truthfully on social media As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos. This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world. If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism , please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting. — Gabriella Jacobs, multimedia journalist Support our work