With the Knesset’s vote to dissolve itself earlier this month, Israel has officially entered election mode. According to Israeli law, the next parliamentary elections are required to be held no later than October 27. A date for the polls has not yet been set. Many pundits and analysts are now predicting that the elections will happen in the first half of September. But either way, within the next five months, Israelis will have a chance to deliver their verdict on the present government’s performance. So who are the main contenders? And what are they set to be arguing about?
A date for the polls has not yet been set. Many pundits and analysts are now predicting that the elections will happen in the first half of September.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, comprising his own Likud party, plus a number of nationalist and ultra-religious parties, currently controls 60 seats in the 120 member Knesset. Facing him is a fragmented opposition, running a gamut of orientations from rightist (Yisrael Beiteinu), via centrist and leftist lists and including also parties drawing support from Israel’s Arab citizens.
According to the available polls, the main contender for victory with Netanyahu’s Likud is set to be the B’yahad (Together) list, led by former Prime minister Naftali Bennett, and incorporating the Yesh Atid party of Yair Lapid, who also served as prime minister for a short time in a rotation agreement with Bennett in the 2021-2022 period.
An additional centrist opposition list, Yashar (Direct), led by former IDF chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, also looks set to garner a significant number of seats.
Israeli politics, however, is mainly about potential coalition blocs, not about the performance of individual parties. Israel’s party list system of proportional representation produces a legislature at once highly representative of the range of opinions in the society, and with a natural tendency toward instability. The 3.25% electoral threshold awards four seats. No party can hope to rule alone. So electoral victory will go to the party able to cobble together a coalition of like-minded lists (or at least lists able to serve each other’s interests).
More precisely, the two biggest lists have a number of smaller groupings comprising their natural allies. But the electoral arithmetic means that these are unlikely to command together the magic number of 61 seats or more to form a governing coalition. Horse trading between the main blocs and smaller, sectoral lists, most significantly those representing the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish population, is the usual result.
As of now, the available polling suggests that neither bloc is set to reach a clear majority. Two polls published on May 20 had the current coalition winning 53 seats, with the opposition obtaining 57. The remaining 10 seats, according to the polls, would be won by two lists representing Israel’s Arab citizens. These lists are perceived as committed to pro-Palestinian positions and neither the Likud nor Byahad would include them in a coalition. The result is that neither has a clear and unambiguous route to government, if the current polls are correct.
This is Israel’s first election since the October 7, 2023, massacres, and substantively, the polls are set to be a referendum on the response to the events of that day and the performance of the government under whose watch they took place.
The result, then, would be unceremonious maneuver and trading following the vote, in which each bloc would seek to tempt away an element of the rival formation.
It is of course possible that the polls prove erroneous (they have often been so in the past). If they are not, then a Byahad attempt to tempt away elements from the current coalition, and a rival attempt by Netanyahu and Likud to persuade one or another element of the opposition to serve under him are likely following the vote.
Which issues will dominate the campaign? This is Israel’s first election since the October 7, 2023, massacres, and substantively, the polls are set to be a referendum on the response to the events of that day and the performance of the government under whose watch they took place.
The opposition Byahad list will seek to hammer home the idea that the Netanyahu government presided over an erroneous strategic conception according to which Hamas in Gaza was deterred, and that this mistaken notion led in turn to faulty decisionmaking further down the line that ultimately left Gaza border communities near defenceless on the morning of October 7. Appointing a full state commission of inquiry into October 7 and the period preceding it is a stated commitment of Byahad and is likely to feature prominently in its campaign.
Given the apparent direction of events re Iran, the opposition will also point to the fact that despite nearly three years of war, neither the Teheran regime nor any of its proxies, including Hamas, have been destroyed. All have been weakened and have absorbed heavy blows. But all are still operating, and continuing to dominate their areas of rule and operation.
The coalition will seek to point to its military successes in the post October period. The heavy damage nonetheless inflicted on Iran and its various allies and proxies is likely to play a large role in its messaging. The close relations with the Trump Administration, and the sense or assertion that Netanyahu enjoys a stature as an international statesman which none of his rivals can match are similarly set to loom large in the coalition’s campaign.
The close relations with the Trump Administration, and the sense or assertion that Netanyahu enjoys a stature as an international statesman which none of his rivals can match are similarly set to loom large in the coalition’s campaign.
A second issue likely to dominate the campaign is that of exemption from military service of Ultra-orthodox Israeli Jews. At a time when the burdens placed on both regular and reservist IDF troops are very considerable, this has emerged as a key point of contention. The IDF says that it is short of 10,000 soldiers, including 6000 combat troops, as its missions continue to multiply. The opposition is set to make the clear ending of exemptions for the Ultra-Orthodox a central rallying cry. The coalition will claim that its own proposed law on this matter will adequately address the issue (a difficult case to make for reasons beyond the scope of this article).
The elections about to take place in Israel are far from routine. They will be held against a background of ongoing conflict. They ought to constitute, ultimately, a decision on the nearly two decade leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, signalling a change of direction or, conversely, a clear endorsement of the current path. For either of these to happen, however, and for deadlock to be avoided, a significant shift one way or the other across the current blocs needs to happen. Whether this will take place remains to be seen.
Published originally under the title “Netanyahu Endorsement or End of an Era: Israel Faces Its October 7 Election.”
