Guarantors give Bennett, Eisenkot financial push

Gadi Eisenkot has raised NIS 11.8 million and Naftali Bennett NIS 30 million in guarantees for their election campaigns, and it won’t stop there. The focus on new parties is not coincidental. While the veteran parties benefit from public funding on the basis of the number of members each has in the outgoing Knesset, the new ones have to find creative ways of financing their campaigns. The use of guarantees raises questions of the identity of the guarantors, public policy issues arising from this method, and who benefits from this kind of involvement and how.

Scrutiny of the lists of donors and guarantors to the new parties, as reported to the State Comptroller, reveals that the Bennett 2026 party has raised guarantees from several prominent businesspeople. Assaf Wand, one of the founders of Insurtech company Hippo, provided guarantees amounting to NIS 2 million. Omer Kaplan, co-founder and CEO of e-commerce platform ZyG and co-founder of ironSource, Marco Talmon, Prof. Yoav Shoham, Gil Rubinstein, and Nir Novak – each of these has provided a guarantee of NIS 1 million.

A similar situation prevails in Eisenkot’s campaign. His Yashar party enjoys the support of several businesspeople, among them Alfred Akirov, founder of and controlling shareholder in real estate group Alrov, who owns 14.45% of Clal Insurance, and Shmuel Harlap, part owner of vehicle importer Colmobil.

This is the big money. Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut (Identity) party and Yaron Zelekha’s New Economic Party are looking to raise donations and guarantees, but, by contrast with past campaigns in which they raised millions, this time round they are relying on more modest sums from the public, without the prominent involvement of businesspeople.

The workaround

Running for the Knesset, particularly at the head of a new party, takes money. By law, a donation to a political party is limited to NIS 14,000, and donations may not be raised from corporations but only from private individuals. In the current political reality, donations are small change for new parties competing against established ones which, as mentioned, receive public funding in accordance with their size in the Knesset. New parties also receive funding from the state, in accordance with the proportion of the vote that they eventually win. The unpredictability that this entails puts them at a disadvantage against the established parties.

To compete effectively, new parties have to find ways around the restrictions on traditional donations. This is where the guarantees come into play. They enable a party to obtain an advance from the state or to take bank loans in substantial sums. Unlike donations, guarantees are not restricted in amount.

RELATED ARTICLES

Serial guarantors

Akirov and former Koor Industries CEO Jonathan Kolber are prominent examples of regular providers of guarantees to political parties. This time, both have placed their bets on Eisenkot’s party. In the election of 2021, Kolber put up a guarantee of NIS 4 million and Akirov NIS 2.5 million for Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party. Before that, in the three election campaigns of 2019-2020, Akirov was a leading supporter of Benny Gantz. Altogether, Akirov and his son donated NIS 11,500 to Gantz’s Israel Resilience party, and put up guarantees totaling NIS 2 million. In 2021, when Gantz stood again, he did not need this help since his party’s fifteen Knesset seats entitled it to sufficient state funding.

Looking further back, Akirov was close to Ehud Olmert and before that he was reportedly a supporter of Ariel Sharon, both of whom became prime minister. In the past, Kolber provided a NIS 750,000 guarantee for Gantz’s party. Shmuel Harlap together with his son Assaf provided guarantees to Gantz amounting to NIS 1.5 million. For the forthcoming election, Harlap has provided a NIS 966,000 guarantee to Eisenkot. Real estate developer Jonathan Greenwald, who provided guarantees totaling NIS 2 million to Gideon Sa’ar, reportedly provided a NIS 1 million guarantee to Bennett and Ayelet Shaked when they ran for the Knesset jointly in 2019.

There are also some well-known names from the business world among donors within the NIS 14,000 restriction. Holmes Place International chairperson Richard Hunter has given NIS 14,000 to Bennett’s party; Mellanox founder Eyal Waldman has given a similar sum to Eisenkot; Hagai Shalom has given NIS 13,500 to Eisenkot; Zvi Stepak, founder of investment house Meitav, has given NIS 14,000 to Eisenkot having previously contributed to the Labor Party, in 2014. Nir Zohar, president of technology company Wix, was among the founders of Eisenkot’s Yashar party and contributed NIS 13,500 to it.

“We’re still a democracy”

Alfred Akirov told “Globes”: “It’s a matter of a guarantee, not a donation. The party has to repay the money with interest and expenses.” Asked about the guarantees he provided to Sa’ar and Gantz’s parties, he replied, “If I believe in the person and the party, I give.” Shmuel Harlap denied any connection between politics and business, saying, “A person shouldn’t give support in order to gain something from it, but because he believes in the politician and in his stance. It’s totally wrong to use a politician to promote business interests, and I reject and condemn any tie between politics and business.”

Both men, like other guarantors, held meetings with Eisenkot and formed positive impressions of him before deciding to put up the guarantees, of NIS 1 million each. When I asked Akirov if he wasn’t fearful about what the response might be on the other side of the political divide, he responded, “For the time being, we’re still a democracy. If there’s a dictatorship it might be different.”

By contrast, a donor who sought to remain anonymous explained that the effect of providing guarantees was liable to be negative. “An expression of support of one kind or another, such as a donation, is liable to cause harm to the company, because there’ll always be a camp that doesn’t think like me.” He said that his main concern was about actions from the other side of the political map. “The decision makers can take revenge for the expression of opinions they don’t like with regulations and impositions,” he said.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on July 13, 2026.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2026.