Israel's Man on a Red Horse

General Amnon Lipkin-Shahak is no Colin Powell. The former chief of the Israeli army who formally declared his candidacy for Prime Minister Wednesday may look like a new broom to those tired of the traditional Likud-Labor divide, but that could be wishful thinking. “Politically Shahak would be on the left flank of the Labor Party,” says TIME Jerusalem bureau chief Lisa Beyer. “Israel’s generals tend to be more left-wing than its politicians. That could be because they know the horror of war, but it could also reflect the dominance of the kibbutz movement in the upper echelons of the Israeli military.” Despite his popularity, the general’s dovish positions on a Palestinian state and on swopping land for peace with Syria aren’t likely to eat into Netanyahu’s support base.

Shahak’s strong showing in opinion polls is based on Israelis projecting their own political attitudes onto a man bound to silence by military discipline, says Beyer. Israeli voting patterns reflect a fierce divide between Israelis of European origin and those who immigrated from Arab countries. “Right now there’s little indication that Shahak will be able to bridge that divide,” says Beyer. After all, a military background is the rule rather than the exception among Israel’s leaders.