Political Ad: Eisenkot labels Netanyahu's digital finance backup plan a threat to savings

Israel’s political debate over economic resilience took a sharper turn this weekend. On Saturday, Gadi Eisenkot, the chairman of the Yashar party, released a campaign video on X that directly targets Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent financial proposals.

The spot opens with the assertion that all of Israel’s money is currently at risk. It then cuts to footage from a prior interview on Channel 10, where Netanyahu stated that the nation must prepare for an alternative economy due to mounting international sanctions. In that same conversation, the prime minister confirmed that blockchain technology would certainly be part of the strategy. He noted that he had already requested a plan for its implementation.

Eisenkot’s team seized on that admission. The video brands the proposed digital finance mechanism with the nickname Bibicoin. It argues that adopting such a system would destroy the country’s economic standing. The creators of the ad claim the new structure would mimic the closed economies of North Korea and Iran.

The video lists specific sectors that would suffer under this model. It cites the end of the high-tech industry, the end of healthcare, and the end of national security as the inevitable outcomes. The narration warns that the government must not burn through the nation’s savings to support the shift.

A central question raised in the video concerns foreign investment. The ad asks how the global high-tech industry could continue to invest in Israeli companies if digital currency became the primary method of transaction. It implies that such a barrier would drive capital away from local firms.

In a separate text post on X, Eisenkot addressed the issue in his own voice. He wrote that Netanyahu admits his policy will lead to international isolation and economic sanctions that will shake the market. He described this trajectory as the collapse of national security. The former IDF chief framed the digital finance pivot not as a solution, but as proof of economic failure.

The exchange has placed the prime minister’s contingency plans at the center of the political discourse. Eisenkot is using Netanyahu’s own words from the Channel 10 interview as the primary evidence for his criticism. The debate now centers on whether the proposed backup financial system protects Israel or endangers its 150 billion shekels in national savings.