A recurring theme in Jerusalem since the Oct. 7 attack has been what will come next for Israeli politics when the war in Gaza ends. Though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is once again ascendant in the polls and no major new political parties and few candidates have been declared, calls for a sea change in Israel’s leadership have been widespread.

Prominent members of Israel’s business community, especially in the high-tech industry, want to play a part in that change. 

Political organizing in the tech sector began years before the war in Gaza, and was most public during last year’s protests against the government’s planned judicial reform. Figures such as Papaya CEO Eynat Guez threatened to move company money out of Israel. Chants and banners with the slogan “Save our start-up nation,” and strikes known as “Economic Resistance Days” were a common part of the demonstrations in Tel Aviv.

Since October, the tech and business sectors have taken a more muted public stance against the government, but there has been a lot of movement behind the scenes. 

Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem and currently the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s special envoy for innovation, has been privy to some of these conversations, and told Jewish Insider that “there is a lot of talk about new parties because there is a general feeling that people want new, untainted faces.”

One Israeli political source told JI about fielding offers from leaders in finance and tech to help form a new party, but said that most of the figures looking into politics are not household names in Israel and wouldn’t have enough time to make themselves well-known.

”It’s great to have people from diverse backgrounds, but you still need people who understand politics and you still need names people know and can trust,” the source said.

If there are any candidates in Israel’s tech sector who are well-known enough to clear that initial hurdle, it would be some of the people reported to be involved in discussing ways to topple or even replace Netanyahu, such as Chemi Peres, son of former President Shimon Peres and co-founder of Pitango Venture Capital; and Izhar Shay, another venture capitalist and a former Science and Technology minister, whose son, Staff Sgt. Yaron Oree Shay, 21, was killed fighting Hamas on Oct. 7.

Another one of those names is Eyal Waldman, the former CEO of Mellanox, the Israeli computer networking products company bought by Nvidia in 2019. Mellanox’s technologies are thought to have contributed to Nvidia’s meteoric rise in the recent artificial intelligence boom. 

Waldman also lost his daughter, Danielle, 24, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, along with her partner, Noam Shai, 26. 

He was awarded Israel’s highest civilian honor, the Israel Prize, this year, in the category of entrepreneurship and technological innovation. The award, whose recipients are selected by an Education Ministry committee, was the subject of controversy when reports emerged that Education Minister Yoav Kisch attempted to cancel all prizes not related to the war, in order to avoid giving one to Waldman because of his public criticism of Netanyahu.

Waldman spoke with Jewish Insider at the offices of his investment firm Waldo Holdings in Tel Aviv last week, a day after Fitch downgraded Israel’s credit rating from A+ to A with a negative outlook, citing the war and “fractious” domestic politics. 

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Jewish Insider: Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says Israel’s lower credit rating is because of the war, but Opposition Leader Yair Lapid is blaming government policies. What do you think?

Eyal Waldman: It’s a combination of both. The war has an influence; it cost NIS 250 billion [$64.5 billion]. But I think the government’s management has been very bad. This government is a failure in everything economic, from the budget to everything else.

JI: What do you think the war’s impact on Israel’s economy will be, in the short and long term?

EW: There’s a growing deficit. We need very serious budgetary and economic discipline. Our lower credit rating means that our money will cost us more money. But in the long term, I think the Israeli economy is very strong and will grow after this…

I think that budgets that are going to settlements and Haredim and irresponsible places where they shouldn’t be is shameful, and that it is shameful that ministers are trying to pilfer funds for their sectors.

JI: You signed an open letter with 200 business leaders, including half of the companies on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, calling for elections to be held earlier than their planned 2026 date, to save Israel’s economy. Can you tell me more about those efforts?

EW: We want to bring the election up in any way possible. We are running a lot of campaigns at the same time, but I don’t see it succeeding so far. 

JI: Does it have a chance?

EW: I don’t know.

JI: Where do your political plans stand today?

EW: I don’t want to get into it. If there aren’t enough suitable people, then I would consider entering.

JI: Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was in the tech sector before entering politics, and he seems to be trying to make a comeback. There are reports that he is in contact with tech leaders interested in politics, though he is politically to the right of most of the prominent names. Are you working on anything together?

EW: I’m in touch with Naftali, but not about these things. We talked a few times about what’s happening in the country and what needs to be done.

JI: What do you think needs to be done?

EW: I think this is a terrible government. So many people were murdered and kidnapped on this government’s watch. The No. 1 priority needs to be bringing back the hostages. I don’t see the government doing all it can. We can end up in a situation like with [captured IAF navigator] Ron Arad, where he just disappeared.

The second priority needs to end this operation, to let the IDF win and do what needs to be done to significantly destroy Hamas. We need to take care of Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank, and we need to aim for peace.

We need Hezbollah to be at least 20 km away from our border and let the evacuees [from Israel’s north] come home. There’s a lot to do.

We need to conscript all of the Haredim. We need to stop all of the economic benefits that they receive today so that they will enlist and be part of shouldering the burden that we all carry.

JI: Despite all of that, Netanyahu and Likud are leading in the polls again. What do you think can be done from the Knesset opposition or beyond to bring a change?

EW: We need better leaders for the opposition. I don’t think that [National Union Party leader Benny] Gantz, Lapid, [Israel Beytenu leader Avigdor] Liberman or [Labor leader] Yair Golan are doing their job well.

JI: Do you think a new leader can come from the protests in the streets?

EW: The vacuum is so huge that it can come from anywhere.

JI: Do you think the way the Israel Prize was handled is indicative of a problem with this government?

EW: It’s unfortunate that it happened. The controversy was caused by unintelligent people. This government is irresponsible and reprehensible. Instead of going by the professional committee, the Netanyahus want to decide who gets the Israel Prize and they got Shlomi Fogel, a businessman sent by Netanyahu, involved. It’s shameful. [Note: Fogel has denied involvement.]

JI: You were one of the people impacted by the Oct. 7 attack who met with President Joe Biden when he visited Israel shortly after the attack. What was that like?

EW: He was amazing. He said four very important things. First, that you don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist. Second, that in the Holocaust [the U.S.] wasn’t there for the Jews, but [they] are here now, and that’s why he came to Israel [shortly after the Oct. 7 attack]. Third, that Israel has to follow the laws of war, and fourth, that we have to think about the day after. He said it briefly but clearly and correctly.

President Biden talked about what the U.S. was willing to do. It was the beginning of the war and it was amazing that he came so soon after all this exploded and gave us such great support.

JI: What do you think needs to happen on the “day after”?

EW: We need a situation in which the Palestinians want to make peace. Up until now, we weren’t in that situation. We don’t have the right leadership on both sides. 

In 1973, Egypt was our No. 1 enemy. No one believed that we could make peace. One person, [Egyptian President Anwar] Sadat came to speak in the Knesset and made peace single-handedly. [Then-Prime Minister of Israel Menachem] Begin agreed, and it lasted to this day. It’s amazing. I hope that one day we will have leaders here and there [among the Palestinians] who can make peace.

I think the most important thing to understand is that we need to replace this government. That is the most important thing that can help Israel. This is the first time we have a prime minister who is the enemy of the state and is only looking out for himself in every way. The hostage deal has become a question of whether it’s politically good or bad for him, same with the end of the war. It’s the worst way to look at it, instead of thinking “what’s good for Israel is good for me.” 

That is our biggest problem. I think that when we replace the prime minister, things will improve.

JI: We replaced the prime minister in 2021 and it didn’t change much. 

EW: I hope this time will be different.

JI: You employed Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for years, but many Israelis are nervous about those kinds of initiatives, after reports that Palestinians that worked on kibbutzim near the Gaza border provided information to Hamas. Are you still hiring Palestinians?

EW: I still work with Palestinians in the West Bank, but I’m no longer in touch with employees in Gaza. I think that we have to continue to employ Palestinians. We need synergy between the Palestinian people and the Israeli people so that we can do things together to advance two states for two people, economically and diplomatically.

I took part in peace negotiations with Palestinians around the time of the COVID-19 [pandemic]. I spoke with business people with connections in the government. We wanted to hold a conference in Ramallah and Caesarea, but [the Palestinians] agreed only to do it in Cyprus. We wanted to bring in top Palestinian universities and universities in Amman and across the Arab world, with think tanks that have an expertise in Middle East peace. We’d bring in [former secretaries of state] Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and [former U.K. Prime Minister] Tony Blair as judges, and we would give a prize to the best peace proposal. And we would do it every year until we made peace. [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas put a stop to it, but maybe we can do it in the future.

There are so many conflicts that have been resolved. I don’t understand why we can’t make peace. I want people who made peace in other places to come here and lecture us on how they did it.