Middle East | Israel's election under pressure

Will the Israelis get rid of him or not? Ahead of the October 27 general election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu grins from a giant Likud party election poster on the facade of a building in Tel Aviv with the slogan "No Surrender." Photo: AFP/Jack Guez Since the so-called judicial reform of 2023, Israeli society has no longer found peace. The Hamas attack on October 7, the hostage crisis, the criminal war in Gaza and the wars in Lebanon and against Iran have accelerated the authoritarian transformation of the Israeli state.

The polls of the governing parties show that a majority is not in sight for them. Against this background, there are increasing signs that the government is trying to intervene in the electoral process. President Yitzchak Herzog therefore warned in July that free elections were in danger.

The Central Election Commission has been under considerable pressure from the right for months. As a result, its long-standing general director resigned in May after more than 15 years. The chairman of the commission is the – conservative and settler-friendly – ​​Deputy President of the Supreme Court, Noam Sohlberg. Despite his political background, he is by no means immune to hostility from the right-wing camp. As recently as June, ultra-Orthodox protesters who did not share his stance on the issue of conscription stormed his family's home, smashed windows and damaged his car - a foretaste of what could happen in the event of a right-wing election defeat.

Another threat that worries many Israelis comes from the police, which National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gwir has now brought fully under his control. It could intervene on election day - for example by being present in front of polling stations in Arab cities and neighborhoods or by checking alleged grievances at polling stations. There would also be the possibility that, as in the past, it would allow right-wing paramilitaries to roam the streets. On election day, police and paramilitaries could intimidate voters, block polling stations or disrupt the counting.

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What's more: at the end of September, the election committee - a political body headed by commission chairman Sohlberg, in which all factions are entitled to vote - voted for the exclusion of the (mainly) Arab parties United List and Raam and thus in effect for the exclusion of the political representation of a fifth of the population. The Supreme Court ultimately revised this exclusion; Nevertheless, the election committee's decision shows how far the attack on free and fair elections has already gone.

The Jewish-Zionist opposition parties have largely supported the occupation policy and the militaristic escalation of the last few years.

Against this background, it cannot currently be ruled out that Netanyahu will follow Trump's script and simply not recognize the election results in the event of defeat. The foundation for this has already been laid: institutions are being systematically delegitimized, trust in state organs is being deliberately undermined, and political opponents are being defamed as “traitors.” In addition, there is AI-generated and mass-spread misinformation on social media and Telegram channels.

The opposition and civil society are preparing for possible scenarios. Several parties have set up task forces made up of lawyers and former police officers, and civil society initiatives are coordinating a network of almost 20,000 election observers.

It is quite surprising that the Netanyahu government even managed to last a full legislative period. As a reminder: five elections took place between April 2019 and November 2022 alone. The fact that the coalition lasted so long was not due to its political strength; Rather, the fact that they would not have achieved a majority in the event of a new election brought the governing parties together, for better or for worse.

The fact that the coalition was so far from a majority was due to broad resistance to the authoritarian restructuring of the state - and in particular to the so-called judicial reform, which was aimed at largely disempowering the judiciary. In addition, there were the unpopular pet projects of the coalition partners: the settler parties (Otzma Jehudit and HaTzionut HaDatit) wanted to push ahead with their “Greater Israel” plan, the ultra-Orthodox parties (Shas and the religious anti-Zionist Jahadut HaTora) wanted to permanently exempt their supporters from military service, and the Likud sought to stop the criminal case against Netanyahu.

People on a street in Jerusalem stroll past election posters depicting the leader of the Otzma Jehudit (Jewish Power) party, the right-wing extremist Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gwir. Photo: AFP/Hazem Bader The opposition was unable to use all of this to its advantage. Despite months of mass protests against judicial reform and pressure from hostage families during the Gaza war, she failed to overthrow the government. On the contrary: Netanyahu's challenger Benny Gantz even temporarily joined the war cabinet after October 7th, and Gideon Saar, once a loud critic of Netanyahu within the Likud, moved his party into the coalition. In addition, any criticism of Israel's conduct of the war came under considerable pressure to legitimize itself. This weakened the opposition permanently.

In the past, Netanyahu has been able to consolidate his camp before every election. With a narrow majority and a threshold of 3.25 percent, a few votes sometimes decide the outcome of the election. To this end, Netanyahu welcomed Ben Gwir, who had a criminal record for supporting the Kahanist Kach movement, which was classified as a terrorist organization, into his alliance and thus brought him into the political mainstream.

This time, however, he didn't really manage to consolidate. The Netanyahu camp is entering the race with three parties that could fail because of the threshold clause. Furthermore, the Likud has become a “toxic brand” for aspiring politicians, which is why the head of government was unable to attract high-profile candidates to the Likud list this time.

The opposition center-right camp gathered in two alliances. On the one hand, the former chief of general staff Gadi Eisenkot founded a new formation together with the Jashar (“Upright”) party. On the other hand, Naftali Bennett, a politician from the religious-nationalist camp, joined forces with the liberal opposition leader Jair Lapid in the BeYachad alliance. Both had briefly ruled together in 2021-22.

Eisenkot and Bennett both position themselves as alternatives to Netanyahu and want to achieve an explicitly “Zionist majority.” This excludes Arab parties, although a change of government without their support hardly seems mathematically possible.

The Israeli left is greatly weakened, but certainly present. In the polls, HaDemocratim ("The Democrats"), an alliance of the left-Zionist Meretz and the social democratic Haavoda, has ten seats - a high since 2021. The alliance is led by former Major General Jair Golan, who gained notoriety in 2016 with a speech about fascist tendencies in Israeli society. His military past enables him to reach voters from the Jewish-Zionist majority society with positions critical of the war; At the same time, his “politics of strength” is met with rejection in the non-Zionist left spectrum. Voices critical of the occupation and war come primarily from the former Meretz and remain a minority. After all, HaDemocratim is the only opposition party that advocates cooperation with the Arab parties.

The United List, an electoral alliance between the socialist Hadash and the Palestinian nationalist parties Taal and Balad, has around seven seats in polls; the Raam party, which is running alone this time, to around five. Raam is building on the experiences from the 2021-22 government and is pursuing a policy of outstretched hand towards the Jewish majority society. To achieve this, the party cut its institutional ties to the Islamic Movement (Shura) in December 2025 and placed the first Jewish candidate, the former Yesh Atid MP and Deputy National Security Minister Joav Segalovitch, in second place on the list.

The Makom LeKulanu (“Room for Us All”) party, which emerged from the Jewish-Palestinian grassroots movement “Standing Together,” placed itself between HaDemocratim and the United List. However, since this ran the risk of failing due to the threshold clause, she withdrew her candidacy.

During the election campaign, the chairman of the Bejahad Party and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (left) meets with relatives of former Israeli hostages during a protest in “Hostages Square” in Tel Aviv. Photo: AFP/Jack Guez How the Palestinian parties will act after the election remains unclear. On the one hand, everyone involved emphasizes their determination to replace the current government; On the other hand, they have reservations about helping Bennett, former director of the Jescha settler umbrella organization, or Eisenkot, former chief of staff, into office.

The polls have been showing the same picture for months: of the 120 seats in the Knesset, Netanyahu's coalition is likely to get around 50 seats, the Jewish-Zionist opposition almost 60 seats, and the Arab parties 10-12 seats. However, if all of the small parties in the Netanyahu camp overcome the threshold clause, both camps could be on equal footing (and both would remain without a majority).

Three scenarios are currently emerging: 1) Netanyahu wins through repression or vote buying or does not recognize the result; 2) the opposition forms a stable or tolerated (minority) government; or 3) no camp achieves a majority and new elections follow.

The first scenario, if Netanyahu and his coalition partners remained in office, would be devastating for Israel's fragile democracy. In this case, judicial reform should be quickly revived; An intensification would also be expected given the ongoing wars.

But even voting them out would not solve all the problems. The Jewish-Zionist opposition parties have largely supported the occupation policy and the militaristic escalation of the last few years. For large parts of the liberal-Zionist mainstream, it is enough to restore the status quo before the judicial reform, supplemented at most with conscription for ultra-Orthodox and a parliamentary committee of inquiry on October 7th.

A real alternative, on the other hand, would have to initiate a restructuring that is radical by Israeli standards: the renunciation of belief in Jewish supremacy, the reconstruction of an effective welfare state, a serious commitment to the peace process with the aim of ending the occupation and recognizing a Palestinian state, as well as cooperation on an equal footing. Because only turning away from the Greater Israel project makes a democracy worthy of the name possible.

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