The Waiting Time: Israel Approaches Watershed Elections

A little less than a month remains before general elections in Israel, scheduled to be held on October 27. Many observers are referring to the upcoming polls as the most consequential to be held in the Jewish state for a generation, and perhaps in the country’s history. The election campaign now dominates the public debate, with all statements from ministers and their opponents assumed to be tuned for maximum appeal to their respective electorates.

These elections are taking place against a background of ongoing regional conflict, triggered by the worst security disaster in Israel’s history. They are the first polls since the massacres of October 7, 2023. The reckoning for October 7, and assessing the relative successes and failures of the subsequent three years of war dominate the discussions. The issue of recruitment of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Israelis, many of whom are currently exempt from conscription, is a central point of contention. The issue has been massively exacerbated because of the massive burdens currently being placed on reserve IDF soldiers. The proper way that the country should investigate the errors that led to October 7 is a specific, key subject for debate. So who are the main players in the campaign, and what are the prospects?

The coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu controlled 64 seats in the 120 member Knesset, before parliament dissolved itself on July 17, 2026 and the election campaign began. Within the coalition, Netanyahu’s Likud party held 32 seats.

Benjamin Netanyahu has dominated Israeli public life for a generation, and the upcoming elections will inevitably be seen as a day of judgement on his political career. Netanyahu first served as prime minister between 1996 and 2000. He then returned to the top job in 2009 and has been prime minister since then, with an 18 month interlude in 2021-22. His approach to governance has been characterized by an acute awareness of external threats and the need to organize effectively against them, and by an appeal to Jewish tradition and national rights as the bedrock of Israel’s political community. In the sceptical, disenchanted atmosphere that has pertained in Israel since the collapse of the Oslo peace process in 2000, Netanyahu’s core stance has been a natural fit. Police investigations began against him in 2015 and the prime minister was indicted in November 2019 on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. Since his indictment, an anti-establishment and anti-elitist message has become prominent in Netanyahu’s messaging and that of his supporters.

For Netanyahu, the key task in the campaign is convincing a sufficiently large part of the electorate that despite the disaster of October 7, he remains the best guardian of Israel’s security. His critics would argue that the prime minister is attempting this mainly by trying to argue that responsibility for the catastrophe lies with everyone who occupied key national security positions on and before October 7 – other than himself.

Prior to the present campaign, former prime minister Naftali Bennett had been touted as the main contender against Netanyahu for the prime ministership. The campaign, however, has witnessed the rise of a third candidate, former chief of staff Gadi Eizenkot, who now occupies the pole position among Netanyahu’s opponents.

Eizenkot’s Yashar Party outperforms the Likud in most polls, to emerge as the projected single largest party. Naftali Bennett, from the sociological point of view, bears a close resemblance to Netanyahu (former officer in a top-tier special forces unit, from a family of East European recent origin, close connections to the US and fluent American English, upper middle class origins). Eizenkot, however, is a study in contrasts with the current prime minister. He is the first Israeli Jew of recent Middle East origin to have a realistic chance of becoming prime minister (Eizenkot’s parents were Moroccan Jews). He grew up in the town of Eilat, in Israel’s southern periphery. His military career began in the Golani infantry brigade, a unit associated with Middle Eastern, working class Jews and with a reputation for toughness. His English is poor, hesitant and heavily accented. Eizenkot lost a son and a nephew in the fighting in Gaza. In public appearances, he conveys a kind of rough, anti-charismatic sincerity. It remains to be seen if a sufficient number of mainstream Israelis will be convinced. But Eizenkot’s ascendance to the top rank of Israeli political contenders is surely unambiguously positive from the point of view of Israel’s social cohesion and the representation of different communities among its elites. The issues of appointing a state commission of inquiry into the events of October 7 and the question of Ultra Orthodox recruitment to the military are chief among the messages he and his party are promoting.

Among second rank figures and forces, the right of center Bennett has for electoral reasons combined his list with the centrist Yesh Atid party of former prime minister Yair Lapid. His party scores third in most polls. Two other significant leaders on the opposition side are former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman and former deputy chief of staff Yair Golan, leaders of the Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel – Our Home) and Democrats parties, respectively.

Lieberman and Golan in the contrast between them exemplify the fragmented and fractious nature of the anti-Netanyahu camp. Lieberman, once presented internationally as a far right bogeyman, is widely praised in Israel for his prescience on the Gaza issue (he resigned from the cabinet in 2018 in protest against the government’s complacent Gaza policy). He is a resident of the West Bank settlement of Nokdim. His background is on the hard right. Golan, by contrast, heads an amalgam of two of Israel’s historic left of center lists, and has a history of trenchant and even inflammatory statements critical of the West Bank settlers and the right in general. The leaders of the opposition have not managed to agree on a single candidate for the prime ministership, in the event that the opposition is asked to form a government following the elections.

On the coalition side, in addition to the Likud, two far right lists, Religious Zionism led by current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Otzma Yehudit, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir are set to contest the elections. They have recently been joined by a third hard right list led by a former general, Ofir Winter. In addition, lists representing Ultra Orthodox Jewish Israelis of European and Middle Eastern origin – United Torah Judaism and Shas, respectively, will be standing.

The Central Elections Committee, a body controlled by the government, voted this week to ban two lists representing Arab Israelis, because of what they alleged to be the lists’ support for violence against Israelis. The Supreme Court is expected to overturn the ban. The two lists are the United Arab List, which tends towards an Arab nationalist style of politics, and Ra’am. Led by Mansour Abbas, with a more conservative and Islamic orientation.

In addition these blocs, a number of small centrist lists are standing. Israel’s ‘party list’ system of proportional representation means that no party ever wins a majority. And if neither of the two main blocs (Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu is probably the best way to see them, given their heterogenous nature on everything other than this issue) manage to reach 61 seats in the 120 member Knesset, then a small centrist lists stands a chance of holding the balance of power and therefore wielding outsize influence.

The polls are currently showing wide disparities. Channel 14, a pro-coalition TV channel, has Netanyahu and Likud clearly in the lead, on 32 seats (its current number) and able to command an overall majority of 63. Other polls, however, present a far more ambiguous picture. A survey by Channel 13, generally seen as pro-opposition in orientation, had Likud on 18 seats and Eizenkot’s Yashar list on 23. The poll predicted that neither bloc would obtain an overall majority, predicting 54 seats for the pro-Netanyahu bloc and 52 for Eizenkot’s bloc. A poll a few days later by the same agency reversed this picture, finding Eizenkot’s bloc on 54 and Netanyahu’s on 50. But in neither case would either bloc have had an easy or straightforward way towards forming a governing coalition. Neither side reaches 61 without the Arab parties, in all polls other than that Of Channel 14. But all key leaders have publicly rejected forming governments that depend on Arab party support.

Assuming that the polls bear some relation to reality, it therefore looks possible and even probable that the elections on October 27 may produce no clear winner. At that point, if neither side can form a government, another round of elections will be likely. Israel found itself in a similar situation in the 2019-2022 period, when inconclusive results led to the unprecedented holding of five national elections in less than four years, before the right wing coalition led by Netanyahu was finally formed in 2022.

There are alternative possibilities. If Eizenkot’s Yashar emerges as the largest single party, he may be given a chance of forming a government. He may then seek to form a minority administration, with a tacit deal with Ra’am, the more moderate of the Arab parties. Ra’am would then support the government but not be part of it. Another possibility if Netanyahu and Likud emerge as the single largest party is that the prime minister may seek to draw Knesset members from the opposing bloc over to his side, to cobble together a majority.

Of course, an inconclusive result favors the incumbent in that until a new election is held which produces a clear result, Netanyahu will remain in office.

A notable element of the current reality in Israel which is not reflected in the near neck and neck levels of support of the two blocs is the very great gulf of perception that exists between them. Spending time with supporters of the coalition and the opposition, one gets the feeling of being present in two entirely different realities.

For supporters of the coalition, the prime minister bears little responsibility for the events of October 7, blame for which lies largely with the security establishment. At the same time, coalition supporters laud the achievements of the Israeli military on four active fronts over the last three years. At a gathering recently at a private home of supporters of the coalition and the religious right in Jerusalem, I listened as attendees took turns to marvel at the pace of construction in Jerusalem, at the large Jewish families to be seen everywhere in the city, and at the ongoing achievements of the armed forces against Israel’s Islamist enemies in Lebanon and Gaza.

At gatherings of supporters of the opposition, meanwhile, the atmosphere is one of deep foreboding, and near desperate concern at the direction the country will take if the present coalition is returned.

The sentiments expressed there may be summed up in a passage from a recent Hebrew language article by prominent columnist Nahum Barnea in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper. Barnea wrote: ‘Netanyahu proposes that Israel be Sparta – a city-state in which war is the purpose of life. What he really proposes to us is to be Masada – a compound under siege that ends in heroic suicide. Is this what most Israelis want? I don’t think so.’

Two starkly different perceptions of Israel’s current reality and its options are set to compete on October 27. The results may prove somewhat less clear than the divide between the two rival camps.

Published originally on October 2, 2026, under the title “Can Bibi Survive Israel’s Day of Judgment.”