New York Post, on Iran, 26 October 2026

3.0out of 10Minor

Israeli PM Netanyahu and challenger Gadi Eisenkot have very different views on how to end the Iran war

Tap a highlight to see why it matters.1 finding

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot have offered vastly different ideas on how to end the Iran war — as polls are set to open in hours to decide the country’s next leader . Eisenkot has said he believes economic pressure is currently the best way to defeat Iran, and backs strikes on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, but not a return to all-out war. 4 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to Israeli Air Force pilots and ground crews during a visit to Tel Nof Air Base in Tel Nof, Israel, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026.

Zuma / SplashNews.com Netanyahu, meanwhile, has remained adamant that Israel must wipe out to secure the safety of the Jewish state — going as far as to post an AI-generated image of a nuclear bomb destroying Tel Aviv on Sunday to get his point across. The prime minister has also reportedly pushed for joint US-Israel strikes on Iran prior to the elections, but Washington has refused to do so yet as President Trump weighs his options, according to CNN.

“Netanyahu really wanted and tried to convince Trump for a joint attack in Iran before the elections, and Trump did not give a green light,” one Israeli source told the outlet. Netanyahu’s office slammed the report as “fake news,” but the prime minister has been accused of trying to restart the war in hopes of postponing the elections as he faces a tight race against Eisenkot’s opposition coalition. 4 An AI-gNetanyahu pushes for all-out war and regime change in Tehran, while Eisenkot favors economic pressure and targeted strikes on nuclear facilities.

X/@netanyahu Explore More Mahmoud Khalil headed back to Columbia for book tour, outraging Jewish alumni: ‘Apalled’ Israelis in war-ravaged border communities rebuke Netanyahu as country heads to polls: ‘We need ‘hope’ Pro-Abdul El-Sayed ad sparks fury with false claim Israel to blame for high egg, banana prices despite no spikes since Iran war began Eisenkot, a former head of the Israel Defense Forces, believes regime change in Iran is “not an achievable goal,” and he has called for a balance of military strikes and diplomacy to end the war.

He has long criticized the prime minister’s approach to war as poorly planned, with Israel facing three fronts in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran earlier this year. 4 Gadi Eisenkot, Israel’s former military chief of staff and leader of the Yashar party, addresses supporters at the party’s final campaign rally before the legislative election in Tel Aviv, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. AFP via Getty Images The former IDF chief said he supports Trump’s policy of “peace through strength,” telling The Post over the weekend that Iran must not be allowed to become “another North Korea.”

Despite favoring war in the past, Eisenkot now says Trump’s economic pressure has a better chance of giving “a sense of defeat” than a renewed military campaign. While Eisenkot backs renewed strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, he appears less hawkish than Netanyahu — who has repeatedly called for all-out war to resume and for the Islamic republic’s citizens to overthrow the government. “We have another two years of Trump to finish the work in Iran,” Netanyahu wrote on X. 4 Israeli emergency responders inspect a site hit by a missile fired from Iran south of Tel Aviv on Saturday, June 14, 2025.

AFP via Getty Images “Future generations will not forgive us if we miss the historic window of opportunity that allows us to try and complete the most critical mission facing our generation.” Netanyahu maintains that his ties with Trump and the US are the best protection Israel has, with Trump endorsing the prime minister last week. Eisenkot has repeatedly stated that Israel must focus on a future without relying on the US, claiming that Netanyahu is unable to defy Trump and act independently.

Iran and accountability over the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks remain among one of the few key issues between Eisenkot and Netanyahu, as the Israeli leaders are mostly aligned in the issues of Gaza and the West Bank.

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What we found (1)

The New York Post sets out how Netanyahu and Eisenkot differ on Iran ahead of Israel's election, and it mostly attributes each position to the man who holds it. In two places the outlet slips loaded labels for Iran's government into its own narration, calling it "the ruling mullahs" and "the current regime" without quotation marks.

  1. Uses a loaded word

    Minor

    “the ruling mullahs”

    Why this matters
    The Post calls Iran's government "the ruling mullahs" in its own voice. Only "a sense of defeat" sits inside quotation marks, so the label belongs to the outlet, not to Eisenkot.
    The impression it gives
    The reader takes a contemptuous religious label for Iran's leadership as the outlet's neutral description.
    The context
    "Mullahs" is a verdict word, not a description. Where a source uses it, it should sit in quotation marks with that source's name. A plain report would say Iran's government or Iran's leaders.

    Show it in the article

    “the current regime in Tehran”

    Why this matters
    The Post paraphrases Netanyahu's goal but writes "regime" in its own narration, with no quotation marks to show the word is his.
    The impression it gives
    The reader takes "regime" as the outlet's settled description of Iran's government, not as Netanyahu's language.
    The context
    This is Netanyahu's position, reported indirectly. The loaded term should be marked as his or replaced with "Iran's government". The outlet's earlier pieces use "regime" in narration as well.

    How we know

    Show it in the article

What it gets right

  • “according to CNN”

    The report that Netanyahu pushed for joint strikes before the election is attributed to its source rather than stated as fact.

  • “Netanyahu’s office slammed the report as “fake news,””

    The article gives the denial from Netanyahu's office next to the CNN report, so the reader sees that the claim is contested.

  • “a site hit by a missile fired from Iran”

    The caption names who fired the missile instead of leaving the strike without an actor.

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