Israel is heading to the polls on Tuesday in a closely contested election that is being described as one of the most important in its history. The vote is the first since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023 and the subsequent genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, as well as a wider conflict that has seen Israel carry out attacks on Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Qatar. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is seeking to extend his tenure after leading the country’s most right-wing governing coalition which brought together far-right ultranationalists and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties.
Wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in Gaza and faced with a long-running corruption trial, he is fighting for his political survival against a self-styled Zionist opposition bloc that has fundamentally embraced a right-wing approach to Israel’s challenges. Questions over accountability for alleged security failures, disputes over ultra-Orthodox military service and efforts to exclude Arab-led parties dominated the campaign. This has further dampened already low expectations that the vote would offer any meaningful improvement to the lives of Palestinians, as deadly attacks continue almost daily in Gaza despite a yearlong “ceasefire”, while settler pogroms and Israeli army raids have intensified in the occupied West Bank.
The horrifying reality we are witnessing is not simply the product of Netanyahu or the far right. It is rooted in Zionist political thought itself, which is structured around the principle of Jewish supremacy. There is no way around this fundamental fact,” he said.
Israel’s shift to the right did not begin with the establishment of Netanyahu’s most recent government in 2022, or what polls show to have been the rightward lurch that took place across Israel following the Hamas-led attack of 2023. Rather, the collapse of the peace process with the Palestinians and repeated security crises over the past few decades have combined to systematically erode the political centre and left, giving rise to landmark legislative milestones such as the 2018 Nation-State Law, which formally enshrined Jewish supremacy and the continued and violent expansion of illegal Israeli settlements into occupied Palestinian territory with little or no government restraint. However, if the drift to the right was there beforehand, most analysts agree that its speed has accelerated to unprecedented heights under the latest Netanyahu government, which faced accusations of seeking to reshape the country in its own image They point to attempts to strip the Supreme Court of its power to review government actions and the flouting of its rulings on conscripting the ultra-Orthodox minority whose political support helped sustain the governing coalition, as well as the presence of figures such as far-right provocateur and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and religious Zionist Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister.
Together, in return for their seat at the table, both ministers offered crucial support to the controversial judicial overhaul that Netanyahu – himself on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, charges he denies – launched in the early months of 2023 and which continues to this day. Similarly, both ministers have provided encouragement and cover for the surge in violence across the West Bank, while deflecting attempts to hold the coalition accountable for the alleged security failures that preceded the Hamas-led attack. Those who hate him, and there are many in Israel, hate him deeply,” said Bregman.
A new prime minister is likely to calm things down.” With the vote closely watched across the region and beyond, analysts also say the stakes go beyond the names on the ballot and cut through to the very nature of the character and future of Israel. However, to expect too great a change in the overall direction of policy would be to miss the point. None of the mainstream candidates for office in October have talked about including Arab-led parties in any potential c
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