Eisenkot Says Netanyahu's Digital Currency Plan Would End High-Tech and Security Funding

Yashar party chairman Gadi Eisenkot released a campaign video on October 24 attacking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposal to develop alternative financial mechanisms, saying the plan would end high-tech investment, healthcare funding, and security spending in Israel.

The video opened with the line "All of our money is at risk" and replayed an earlier Channel 10 interview in which Netanyahu said Israel must "prepare for an alternative economy" because of international sanctions the country faces. Netanyahu said in that interview that digital finance would "certainly" form part of such a plan and that he had "already asked for a plan to be prepared for that."

Eisenkot's campaign labeled the concept "Bibicoin" and said a digital currency system would "destroy Israel." The video stated that an alternative financial mechanism would produce "an economy like North Korea and Iran," followed by "the end of high-tech, the end of healthcare, the end of security." It also asked how global high-tech investors could put money into Israeli companies if digital currency were the only available method. "We must not let him burn through our savings," the video said.

In a separate post on X, Eisenkot wrote that Netanyahu "admits that the policy he's leading and wants to lead Israel toward will result in international sanctions that will shake the economy and the market" and that the result "will be the collapse of our national security."

The exchange places Netanyahu's contingency planning for sanctions at the center of the political debate, with Eisenkot using the prime minister's own Channel 10 remarks as the basis for his criticism.

Eisenkot, a former IDF chief, leads the Yashar party. Netanyahu has served as prime minister and has discussed preparing alternative economic mechanisms in response to international sanctions.