Israel September 2026-

February 2026
The Battle to Oust Bibi: Israel’s 2026 Elections
As the Israeli Knesset elections draw near, with all 120 seats up for grabs, the fight for Israel’s future is about to begin. Israel’s right-wing government, led by long-standing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who for all but 18 months of the last 17 years has been the country’s Prime Minister, has become the most unpopular Netanyahu-led government in Israel’s history.
Held against the backdrop of the traumatic events of the 7th October 2023 and the subsequent conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, and with Iran, this election will be a crucial factor in determining Israel’s future, the success of the fragile ceasefire in Gaza and the prospect for a two-state solution to get back on track.
Israel’s proportional representation electoral system leads to numerous parties contesting elections, with outcomes hinged on nationwide party performances and the ensuing coalition negotiations that follow.
With growing anger towards Netanyahu’s government, Israel’s political spectrum has seen a resurgence of centrist and centre-left parties, with Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid, Yair Golan’s centre-left Democrats, and Naftali Bennett’s big-tent Bennett 2026 leading the charge for change
Parties must clear a threshold of 3.25 percent of the national vote in order to win seats in the Knesset. If a party doesn’t clear that bar, its votes are effectively wasted.
The highly proportional system makes it near-impossible for any party to win a majority: since its first general election in 1949, Israel has always been ruled by coalition governments. The electoral system also makes it easier for new parties to suddenly emerge, rapidly shifting the political landscape  —Labour Friends of Israel

1 November
Israeli officials say elections will stand after Netanyahu claimed Arabs stole vote
(AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s efforts to question last week’s elections weakened Sunday as officials said the vote would not be undermined by the allegations and a court ordered suspects in one case released.
In an image that indicated officials were on the same page, the head of Israel’s elections committee was shown sitting between Israel’s attorney general and the head of the Shin Bet intelligence service for a statement making clear that even if claims of foreign interference raised last week are substantiated, the vote would stand.
Netanyahu’s Likud party has said, without giving evidence, that Arab-led parties “stole” the elections in which Netanyahu’s bloc lost its majority of seats in parliament. By casting doubt on the vote, Netanyahu appears to be trying to block any potential alliance in the opposition with the Arab parties that could force him from office.

27-30 October
Difficult negotiations lie ahead in Israel after Netanyahu’s bloc lost its parliamentary majority
(AP) — Israel’s final election results confirmed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies lost their parliamentary majority and that weeks of difficult negotiations among very different parties, from ultra-Orthodox Jewish to secular to Arab-led, lie ahead.
The results released early Friday showed Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 seats in Tuesday’s election. The main opposition bloc won 48. Arab-led parties secured the other 19, a historic showing. Now parties must meet, bargain and seek a way to team up for at least 61 seats in the 120-member Knesset.
Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, remains in charge. His main opponents would most likely need to partner with the Arab-led parties to replace him.
Underscoring the fraught path ahead, Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of a right-wing anti-Netanyahu faction, on Friday appeared to rule out any partnership with Arab-led parties. That alone would make it nearly impossible for Netanyahu’s opponents to form a coalition to oust him.
Difficult decisions lie ahead. Will the main opposition parties that campaigned hard to unseat the divisive Netanyahu make the politically sensitive choice to partner with Arab-led ones? Or will they toss their vows aside to team up with Netanyahu in a potentially fractious unity government?
Israel largely shuts down on Friday for the Jewish Sabbath, and it was not clear who might be meeting with whom. Israelis debated possible coalitions and challenges, as some expressed traditional wariness around Arab parties and others insisted it was time for Jewish-led parties to embrace them.
The election results still need to be certified and submitted to the president next Wednesday. Then President Isaac Herzog will task someone with forming the new government. That could be the leader of the party that received the most votes — Netanyahu — or whoever leaders of the various parties believe is best suited.
Israel’s election results are in. Here’s what could happen next
…Eisenkot and the Arab parties
On paper, the most straightforward solution would be for Eisenkot to join forces with the Arab-led parties in a solid, 67-seat coalition opposed to Netanyahu. Even if they don’t join his coalition, they could provide crucial backing for a minority government.
But that would be politically risky for Eisenkot and his Jewish allies.
Israel’s Arab citizens, who make up 20% of its population, are Palestinians whose families remained in Israel after the 1948 war surrounding its creation. They have close ties to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and largely support their cause, leading many Jewish Israelis to view them with suspicion. …

Netanyahu, at risk of losing power, steps up attacks on Israel’s Arab parties
– Netanyahu alleges voter fraud by Arab parties set to win record number of seats
– Arab parties say tactic is aimed at delegitimising their participation in politics
– Election officials say there is no basis for claims of ‘systematic harm’ to vote’s integrity
(Reuters) – Israeli ​Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alleged on Thursday [29 October], without providing evidence, that Arab parties’ record gains in an election this week were driven in part by voter fraud, a charge ‌rejected by Arab leaders who accused the premier of incitement.
The allegation represents an escalation of rhetoric against Arab parties by Netanyahu and his far-right partners after high Arab turnout in a national ballot on Tuesday effectively blocked a smooth path to power for either him or his main rivals.

Netanyahu set to remain caretaker after inconclusive Israeli election
By Rami Ayyub, Steven Scheer and Lili Bayer
– Netanyahu bloc leads Eisenkot but falls short of majority
– Opposition left with difficult path to oust Netanyahu
– Netanyahu raises prospect of renewed joint action on Iran
– Eisenkot warns security chiefs against political pressure
(Reuters) – Benjamin Netanyahu looked set to remain Israel’s caretaker prime minister after unexpectedly strong backing among Jewish voters left his opponents little apparent prospect of unseating him, ​despite his right-wing bloc losing its parliamentary majority.
With nearly 86% of votes tallied on Wednesday, Israel’s three main broadcasters projected Netanyahu’s bloc of right-wing, far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties would win 53 ‌seats in the 120-seat Knesset, well ahead of the 48 for rival Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc.
… Parties representing Arab Israelis were projected to win an unprecedented 19 seats, leaving Eisenkot little realistic path to power without their broad backing, which many Jewish political leaders reject.
The results could still change as counting continued, but Eisenkot’s bloc of anti-Netanyahu parties, ranging from the centre-left to the hard right, had fallen short of pre-election polls that forecast a tight race.
Netanyahu would remain caretaker prime minister during any coalition negotiations and ​potentially until another election next year. While a caretaker government faces some constraints, experts say it retains powers, including over the war with Iran

Israel election results live: Netanyahu bloc loses majority as most ballots counted
(The Guardian) Opposition bloc and Netanyahu’s coalition predicted to fall short of 61 seats needed to form a government, while Palestinian parties set for big gains
An Inconclusive Vote Leaves Israelis Pondering an Uncertain Future
(NYT) A day after the election, supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were relieved he still had a chance to stay in power, while his opponents worried the mixed results could lead to a political stalemate.
Takeaways from Israel’s inconclusive election
(AP) Netanyahu lost support but could remain in office. His main opponent, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, would most likely have to partner with Arab-led parties to unseat him, a politically costly move that could alienate other opposition factions
Netanyahu Leads Eisenkot in Race to Form Israeli Government
(Bloomberg) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu edged ahead of opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot in the country’s tightly fought election, though a surge in the Arab vote ensured neither has a clear path toward forming a government.
Netanyahu’s right-wing religious alliance was projected to win 53 seats in the 120-member parliament as of Wednesday afternoon, compared with a below-expected 48 for Eisenkot’s bloc. That was after almost 93% of votes had been counted. The two Israeli Arab parties almost doubled their projected number of seats to 19, making them the potential kingmakers during negotiations to secure a majority.

Rivals Strike Tone of Triumph, but Outcome Is Far From Clear
Addressing supporters after midnight, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot, who leads a bloc of opposition parties, both expressed confidence that they will lead Israel’s next government. Vote counting could take days.
(NYT) Israelis voted in the largest numbers in a generation on Tuesday, and exit polls suggested that a bloc of opposition parties was roughly even with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s alliance in what many described as a make-or-break moment for the nation.
The election did not appear to immediately determine who would lead the country next. Vote counting was expected to last days, followed by a potentially lengthy effort by the blocs to assemble a parliamentary majority.
“It’s nearly 4 a.m. in Israel, and there is no clear winner. News is expected to slow down in the coming hours, but pick up again in the morning, when party leaders are expected to begin discussing potential alliances. The official results are still a long way off: Election authorities have so far counted nearly a million votes, about a fifth of the total votes cast.”

Updated exit polling shows Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc tied with Eisenkot’s opposition grouping, with both on 51 seats, as Palestinian parties surge
(The Guardian)Netanyahu finally took the stage at the Likud election night party in Jerusalem, just after 3am local time. He claimed that the right-wing bloc has a clear majority among the Jewish public, despite exit polls showing his grouping tied with the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eiesnkot.
He also told supporters that the country must “establish a strong, right-wing national government” – adding that a government that relies on the support of Palestinian parties must not be formed. Plus ça change.

Two Candidates, Two Israels, One Nation in the Balance
As Israel votes, hard-right nationalism competes with the country’s founding ideals. The outcome could shape Israel’s identity for years.
(NYT) New faces have been few and far between in this election, as have new ideas. The campaign is scarcely about policy, substance, or even Israel’s devastating conduct of the Gaza war that has left more than 74,000 Palestinians dead, according to Gaza health officials.
It is about the survival, or removal, of Mr. Netanyahu, as a means to change the country’s direction.
The strongest presence in this movement has been Gadi Eisenkot, the centrist former chief of the Israel Defense Force and the anti-Bibi from central casting: humble, honest, low-key, uncharismatic, a man whose son was killed fighting in Gaza “while Bibi’s son was tweeting from Miami,” as Gershom Gorenberg, an Israeli author, put it.
…if there has been a single bold political upstart, it has been [Yoav Segalovitz, 67, a soft-spoken former Israeli police officer who has crossed entrenched barriers to become a candidate for an Arab party, Raam, in the hope of preserving those founding ideals.] A quiet man with a melancholic smile that masks passionate conviction, he professes a deep belief in the “freedom, justice and peace” embraced by David Ben-Gurion, the country’s first prime minister, at the declaration of Israel’s independence 78 years ago. His decision to run with the Arab party Raam was, he says, driven by the conviction that this election presents a last chance to salvage such principles from the brutalizing impact of wars and Mr. Netanyahu’s rule. …

26 October
9 September – updated 26 October
Here’s Who’s Running in Israel’s Election
The contest is shaping up to be a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is considered the most consequential in Israel’s history.
(NYT) The campaign so far has been dominated by a battle between Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s polarizing prime minister, and Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief of staff who leads the largest opposition party. Polls show that neither man’s bloc has yet gained the support of a decisive majority of voters, and there is no guarantee that either of them will be the next prime minister.
The result is an unpredictable race, with profound implications for Israelis and the millions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, as well as for the country’s regional conflicts, its international relations and the Jewish diaspora.
About a dozen parties are expected to clear the electoral threshold to make it into Israel’s 120-seat Parliament, the Knesset. The real political wrangling begins after the election, when party leaders will try to forge a governing coalition of at least 61 lawmakers.

Four Ways Israel’s Election Could End. Eventually.
Determining the winner could take weeks. Here’s how one side could gain power in Israel’s electoral system
After the ballots are tallied, each party will be assigned a proportional number of seats based on its share of the vote.
Neither Mr. Netanyahu nor his opponents are expected to achieve a clear victory in the election, which means it will likely only be the first step in determining who can form the next government. Here’s how that might unfold. …

Netanyahu Pushed for Attack on Iran Ahead of Israeli Election, Officials Say
Israel’s military chief resisted the prime minister, who then pressed in recent days for a separate action, short of an overt strike, according to an official and a person briefed on the matter.
(NYT) In advance of Israel’s pivotal election on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought for weeks to orchestrate a new airstrike on Iran but ran into resistance from the military’s chief of staff, according to three senior Israeli defense officials and three other people briefed on the matter.
Mr. Netanyahu’s rationale for pressing to attack Iran before the election was not clear, but a return to war could have potentially disrupted or even delayed the vote. …
Mr. Netanyahu’s appeals to voters became increasingly disturbing over the campaign’s final weekend, with the prime minister saying that his defeat could lead to Israel’s annihilation. He has also suggested that tougher times could be ahead for Israel regardless of the outcome.
On Friday, he said that Israelis should prepare for the end of billions of dollars in American military support from the United States, given the sharp decline of Israel’s standing in U.S. public opinion. He also said the possibility of Israel facing “banking sanctions,” arising from international condemnation, could force the country in coming years to rely on cryptocurrency to circumvent the penalties. …
Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents also believe the future of their country is hanging in the balance on Tuesday. Many liberal Israelis fear that this election is their last chance to prevent their country from becoming an authoritarian state, under the sway of the religious right and shunned on the world stage.
Israeli Jews Across the Spectrum Face an Election of Fears
By David M. Halbfinger
Supporters and opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have expressed intense anxieties about isolation abroad, security at home and the future of Israel’s identity.
(NYT) … Every national election is important, and many play on voters’ fears. But none has felt so consequential and dire to so many Israeli Jews as the one on Tuesday.
And no wonder: They have the chance to render a verdict on polarizing decisions that have torn the country apart for years — and to choose between starkly different visions for Israel’s future.
Perhaps the rawest emotions among Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents surround the question of whether the long-serving prime minister, legendary for his political survival skills, will be held accountable for the worst national-security failure in Israel’s history, the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.
As traumatic and shocking as that attack was, many other deep questions about Israel’s character hang in the balance.
Will the country weaken its judiciary and grant the government far more power? Will it rewrite the social contract to demand service and sacrifice from all sectors of society?
Will it arrest accelerating emigration before a brain drain threatens its tech-driven economy and, close behind, its vaunted military?
Will Israel defy global opprobrium and try to thwart Palestinian aspirations to statehood once and for all, potentially risking its relationship with the United States? Or will it reverse course and attempt to repair ties, at least with Washington?

24-25 October
The End of the Old Israel
How Netanyahu Has Transformed the Nation
(Foreign Affairs) … Netanyahu has been in office on and off since the late 1990s, and he has had a profound influence on Israeli politics
—an influence that Aluf Benn, the editor in chief of the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz, took to the pages of Foreign Affairs in 2016 to explain. Netanyahu himself had changed while in office, Benn argued, transforming from “a risk-averse conservative into a right-wing radical.” And during his tenure, “the largely secular and progressive version of Israel” had all but disappeared.
To understand Israel’s rightward shift, Benn wrote, one must look back to 1948, the year the country was founded by “a group of secular socialists” led by David Ben-Gurion. That political movement stayed in power for decades. Egypt and Syria’s surprise attack on Yom Kippur in 1973, catching the Israeli military unawares, was “the first major challenge to Ben-Gurion’s idea of Israel.” The war deprived Israel of “its sense of invincibility” and dealt a blow to the ruling left-wing Labor party.
Four years later, Menachem Begin, “the founder of Israel’s right wing,” handed Labor its first electoral defeat. Under Begin’s premiership, the “old left-wing elite” lost many of its government positions but retained influence in academia, the media, and the courts, stirring resentment among many Israelis on the right. “No one has felt that grievance more keenly than Netanyahu, who long dreamed of finishing Begin’s incomplete revolution,” Benn argued. And after decades in politics, Netanyahu finally pulled off his “lifelong goal of replacing Israel’s traditional elite with one more in tune with his philosophy.”
8 June 2026
The End of the Old Israel
How Netanyahu Has Transformed the Nation
Aluf Benn

Disenchanted Netanyahu supporters are prize of Israel election campaign
By Emily Rose and Maayan Lubell
Summary
Likud popularity down but loyalty still strong
Top rival wants to win over former Likud voters
Eisenkot’s humble origins wins sympathy among some
(Reuters) The October 7 security breach saw Likud’s popularity plummet. Opinion polls for months have predicted Netanyahu’s coalition of right-wing, far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties losing its majority. But his top rival, centrist Gadi Eisenkot, has no clear path to power either, and the race has become tighter as the election nears.
Right-wing Likud long ago formed a core voter base among Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent, known as Mizrahis, who felt ​neglected by the European-influenced centre-left Labor Party that dominated Israel for generations.
Labor has since dwindled to a rump as Israeli politics have shifted rightwards, and there are now around half a dozen other parties courting Likud voters, from the centre to the far right. But the link to the party among its past supporters remains strong.
“Most people here vote for Likud just because that’s how they were raised,” said Oria Asaf, 25, a past Likud voter now backing Yashar. “The change will come ​when people start to think about their children’s future rather than their parents’ past.”
BATTLE FOR WAVERING LIKUDNIKS
While Netanyahu has a hard core of supporters that can’t be won over, the prize is undecided voters who “understand ​that we are in a state of crisis” and are open to persuasion, said Michal Elmalem Abu, elected as a member of the city council from Likud and now leading Eisenkot’s Dimona campaign.
Some 13% of Israeli voters have yet ‌to decide ⁠how they will vote, according to data collected by the Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute.
Of those who voted for Likud in 2022, just 55% now say they will vote for the party again on Tuesday. Fifteen percent will support parties aligned against Netanyahu, including 8% for Yashar. Another 14% will vote for alternative right-wing parties, and 9% are undecided.

Israelis hold final rally against Netanyahu before election
Thousands rally in Tel Aviv days ahead of Israel’s election
(AP) A large crowd gathered in a final protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government ahead of Tuesday’s close election.
The crowd heard calls for a commission of inquiry into the security failures that led to the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza. Netanyahu has refused such an inquiry.
Netanyahu’s chief rival, Gadi Eisenkot, attended the rally that was an echo of the weekly ones once held to call for the release of hostages taken into Gaza. All hostages or their remains were eventually released, but Netanyahu has been accused of delaying deals to free them sooner.

Israelis are leaving the country in record numbers. Could a looming election accelerate the trend?
A February study found 99,000 Israelis left the country in 2023 and 2024
(CBC) … Ater, a professor at the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University, says these departures could accelerate depending on the outcome of next week’s legislative elections, destabilizing the country’s economy and causing ripple effects throughout the region

21 October
Why Palestinians Hope Israelis Will Oust Netanyahu in Pivotal Election
Many in Gaza and the West Bank are desperate to avoid more years of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, which has made life close to unbearable.
(NYT) Israelis have described the election to be held on Oct. 27 as the most important in their history. For Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the stakes are just as high — even though they do not have a vote.
In previous elections, Palestinians tended to dismiss the candidates to be Israel’s leader as a choice between bad and worse. This time, in the first election since the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, ignited the devastating war in Gaza, many say that replacing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is imperative.
“These elections are existential,” said Nidal Kuhail, 32, a Palestinian who lives in a 6-by-4 meter tent with his three sisters and parents in Gaza after being displaced by the war. “It’s now become a matter of to be or not to be.”
Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state, and his government has built Israeli settlements in the West Bank at a breakneck pace.

THE TRILLION DOLLAR QUESTION: What would the ouster of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mean for war in the Middle East?
Israelis go to the polls on Tuesday for an election sure to be viewed as a referendum on Netanyahu and his ultra-aggressive response to the horrors of Oct. 7.
Polls show Netanyahu’s conservative bloc narrowly trailing that of his main challenger, the former army chief Gadi Eisenkot. The outcome is far from clear, with neither leader expected to secure an overall majority — and likely to require support from a scattering of smaller parties via tortuous post-election talks.
Should Netanyahu prevail — despite the litany of corruption scandals threatening to engulf his premiership — it will be seen as a ringing endorsement of the way he’s waged war in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran following the Hamas terror attacks of Oct 7, 2023.
Conversely, his rejection by voters could be seen internationally as a fresh start for Israel, Jan Philipp Burgard of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network told Forecast in a phone interview from Tel Aviv. “The psychology would change,” he said. “If there was a new sheriff in town, a new prime minister, I think that could help Israel to restore trust at an international level.”
But how much would actually change regarding Israeli foreign policy? As a former chief of staff for the Israeli Defense Forces, Eisenkot is hardly a dove. His policy on Gaza looks every bit as aggressive as that of Netanyahu; last week he vowed to “destroy Hamas’ military wing” and end the group’s leadership of the strip within 18 months.

16 October
Low Expectations for Israel’s Election
Shlomo Ben-Ami
Benjamin Netanyahu has led Israel into a trap in which ever-increasing strategic commitments are outstripping the productive base that finances them, and the goodwill on which its alliances depend is being destroyed. While a new government would not transform Israeli foreign policy, it could begin to drag Israel out of its morass.
(Project Syndicate) In Hungary’s general election in April, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s right-wing populist government was toppled not by some leftist opposition, but rather by a center-right party committed to fighting corruption and restoring democracy. As Israel heads to the polls on October 27, a similar shift is by far the best outcome one can reasonably hope for, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government replaced by a decent, law-abiding administration. A radically new foreign policy will remain out of reach.
In a “normal” democracy, a leader like Netanyahu would have been forced to resign or toppled by popular protests long ago. After all, it was under his watch that Israel endured the horrific terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, and under his orders that Israel has undertaken multiple prolonged wars—marked by war crimes—which exhausted its capacities and alienated the international community.
But Israel is not a normal democracy, and its voters have never been particularly concerned about accountability. While Netanyahu does not command broad-based support—polls largely rule out the possibility that his bloc will retain a majority—his defeat is far from guaranteed. This has little to do with policy: while liberals sometimes present programs and proposals, Israeli elections have always been less about policy platforms than about culture and tribal identity.
Israeli Settlers Launch a Coordinated Attack in the West Bank
Netanyahu vowed to investigate the incident but stopped short of condemning settler violence.
(Foreign Policy</em) Dozens of masked Israeli settlers carried out a mass coordinated attack on Palestinian civilians harvesting olives in eight West Bank villages on Friday, injuring at least 20 people and setting olive groves on fire. Among those targeted in the assault was Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, who was wearing a protective vest marked “PRESS” when she was attacked. …
Friday’s assault on Levine “is the latest in a long line of violent attacks by Israeli settlers against journalists and other civilians in the occupied West Bank,” the Israeli Foreign Press Association said in a statement. “Yet our repeated calls for action to confront this lawlessness have been ignored by Israeli authorities.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly brushed off Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians, and some of his cabinet ministers have pushed for the expansion of Israeli settlements, which are considered illegal under international law. Between January and August of this year, the United Nations documented more than 1,600 settler attacks in the West Bank and at least 76 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers.
… It is unclear whether Netanyahu’s hesitance to condemn Israeli settler attacks will impact the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections. However, Israel’s opposition leaders have already seized on Friday’s incident to denounce the prime minister’s hold on power.
“The Jewish terror attacks, this time also against the ‘Washington Post’ photographer, are not a failure of the government—they are the government’s policy,” Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on X.

14 October
This Is Israel’s Haredi Election
The country’s coming election has become focused on the status of the country’s ultra-Orthodox at wartime.
By Anchal Vohra, Foreign Policy columnist
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community is the country’s fastest-growing population group, with an average fertility rate of around 6.5 children per woman. By 2050, nearly 1 in 4 to Israelis is projected to be Haredi.
Those facts have been known for some time. But as a national election approaches on Oct. 27, they have become the focus of Israeli politics. As Israelis prepare to vote, many are asking themselves whether the growing Haredi community is adding to the country’s troubles—and whether anything should be done about that. Their answer to that question could determine the election outcome.

8-12 October
NAZA: Netanyahu orders identification and prosecution of film’s interviewees
Israeli PM calls for criminal investigation into soldiers and officers interviewed in Guardian-produced documentary
Israel promotes film that mimics NAZA documentary
Embassies post links to hastily produced online film echoing style of real Guardian documentary about mass killings of Gaza civilians
(The Guardian) The Israeli government is promoting an online film project that mimics the style of NAZA, the award-winning documentary that details Israel’s mass killings of civilians in Gaza, in an attempt to counter the real film’s findings.
The real documentary, directed by the Oscar-winning film-makers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, and produced by the Guardian, is in cinemas and will be shown in more than 50 countries.
The Israeli government has denounced the film and announced plans to strip Abraham and Szor of their citizenship, accusing them of treason.

11 October
An Israeli Election Like No Other
Many say a vote in two weeks may be the most consequential in Israel’s history.
(NYT) … Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which has killed more than 75,000 Palestinians and prompted allegations of genocide that Israel has denied. Military campaigns in Lebanon and Iran.
But inside Israel, the trauma of Oct. 7 itself is still fresh. Many Israelis feel there has been no reckoning with the failures that preceded the attack at home. When they go to the polls in two weeks, for the first time since the attacks, one thing many will be voting on is who they think is most likely to keep them safe. I spoke to my colleague Isabel Kershner about what many describe as the most consequential elections in the country’s history. …

10 October
In three years, Israel’s war on Gaza hasn’t just changed the Middle East, it’s changed the world
Steve Bloomfield
A whirlpool of violence has engulfed everywhere from Lebanon to Yemen. Meanwhile, the west has destroyed any political authority it once had
(The Guardian) There was a world before 7 October, 2023, and now there is a world after. …
Three years on from 7 October, both Israel and Gaza have changed beyond recognition. But the consequences of Hamas’s attack and Israel’s brutal response, which has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including 21,000 children, have spread far wider.
Under the pretext of protecting its own borders, Israel has launched wars and military offensives across the region, sending troops into Syria; effectively annexing parts of southern Lebanon, deploying the same tactics there that it used in Gaza; and starting, with the US, an unwinnable war with Iran that has spiralled into a regional conflict affecting all six Gulf states.
The Iran war has sparked a new conflict between the Houthis in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, which this week triggered a mutual defence pact with Pakistan and Turkey, dragging two other countries into the maelstrom. Across the Red Sea, some of the same combatants are involved in the war in Sudan and a fresh conflict inside Ethiopia.
More than a dozen countries across two continents are now entangled in a rising number of wars, with overlapping participants and numerous competing interests.
But there is something else, more insidious, that has changed. The rule of international law, tenuous as it was, has been openly replaced by military might. In 2022, western leaders – building a coalition rightly opposed to Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – made moral appeals based on the violation of international law. In Gaza, they encouraged and supported Israel, even when it was clear that the rules were being broken. That hypocrisy has not gone unnoticed, not just in the global south but among many millions of citizens in the west.
We have watched this happen in real time. Despite the ban on international journalists, anyone with a phone knew what was happening in Gaza from the early days of Israel’s response. Hundreds of Palestinian journalists have reported on the bombing of hospitals and schools, the bombing of cafes and wells, the killings at food distribution points, the deaths of children and babies. War crimes have never before been broadcast in real time, relentlessly, every hour of every day, around the world.
Gaza has also changed how wars are fought. Israel has pioneered the use of AI to select targets, accelerating our descent into a future for which we are unprepared. …

9 October
Israel Denounces the Decision to Award the Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay
(NYT) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led Israel’s denunciations on Friday of the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, a human rights lawyer who was drawn into the international spotlight last year when a United Nations commission she chaired found that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
In a statement, Mr. Netanyahu called the decision by the Norwegian Nobel Committee misguided and said it had “lost its moral compass.” He also condemned Ms. Pillay’s work, accusing her of being prejudiced against Jews.
The Israeli foreign ministry, in a post on social media, denounced it as “the grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice.”

9 October
‘Self-imposed irrelevance’: why the EU is failing to act on growing public criticism of Israel
While Israel’s actions against Palestinians intensify public anger, the bloc remains paralysed along familiar fault lines
(The Guardian) A meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers on Monday is likely to showcase the bloc’s stasis in policy towards Israel – a stalemate that is at odds with rising public criticism in Europe of Israel’s government.
A survey of 10 European countries, including Spain, France and Sweden, found large majorities of people had a negative opinion of Israel. …
Israel is facing ever deeper isolation in the theatre of public opinion. …
Gaza remains a humanitarian catastrophe, with people facing acute shortages of water, nutritious food and medical equipment and medicines, while contending with disease, unemployment, economic collapse and the threat of death or injury. Israel’s airstrikes continue: the death toll includes 1,400 Palestinians killed since a ceasefire was declared a year ago.
The EU talks on the Middle East will focus on the conflicts in Iran and Yemen, but ministers will also discuss the situation in Gaza and the West Bank in the context of elections in Israel on 27 October and the first legislative elections in Palestine in 20 years, which are expected by late November.
… Among a third, larger group of countries in the middle are several, such as France and the Netherlands, that are increasingly critical of the Netanyahu government’s conduct in Gaza and its plans to build the vast E1 settlement, which threatens to critically damage the two-state solution.

7 October
Ian Bremmer: Three years after 10/7, Israel looks backward and forward
The debate over Netanyahu’s track record in responding to 10/7 will shape the race, with 68% of Jewish voters stating that 10/7 will be “central” to their vote. Recent headlines have been damaging to Netanyahu on this front, with reporting emerging that UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed warned Netanyahu before 10/7 about the risk of a Hamas attack—a charge that Netanyahu has emphatically denied.
The political implications of 10/7 have also stretched far beyond Israel’s borders, as the global perception of the country has cratered in the wake of humanitarian outcry over the war in Gaza, with a median of 67% of respondents in 36 countries viewing Israel unfavorably. The growing international anger at Israel has been accompanied by a disquieting spike in antisemitism, with last year featuring “the highest number of victims of antisemitic attacks in more than three decades,” according to Tel Aviv University. Netanyahu has long sought to link criticism of Israel’s actions—especially those connected to alleged Israeli war crimes—with antisemitism, which has arguably added further fuel to Israel’s rising internal polarization. Polarization in Israel has grown so acute that it is now considered by the public to be a more of a threat to the country than Iran.

Scars from Oct. 7 fuel deep divisions over Netanyahu ahead of Israeli election
(AP) — As Israel gears up for its first elections since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his opponents are putting it at the heart of their campaigns.
Nearly every poster, stump speech or televised debate seems to reference the attack, which has scarred the country and remains fresh in the minds of voters. Three years on, the worst security failure in Israel’s history now threatens to end the career of its longest-serving prime minister.
“October 7 is kind of a framework for the entire political discussion that is going on,” said Tamar Hermann, an expert on Israeli public opinion at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank. “All of us are post-traumatic in a way.”
Netanyahu’s opponents want him to pay for the failures that led to the deadliest day in Israel’s 78-year history and plunged the country into a series of inconclusive wars. His defenders say Netanyahu was betrayed by the military establishment and that he has led Israel through a dramatic rebound from its darkest hour.

1 October
NAZA film-makers say they spoke to more than 100 sources about Israeli actions in Gaza
(The Guardian) The team behind the award-winning film NAZA, which details the Israeli military’s targeting policies in Gaza and its alleged acceptance of high numbers of civilian deaths, have revealed they spoke to more than 100 sources with knowledge of the military systems used in the war.
The disclosure came in response to an Israel Defense Forces statement seeking to discredit the documentary.
… “The Guardian stands fully behind the film, which builds on three years of detailed reporting by the Guardian and our partners. Several highly respected news organisations have subsequently confirmed the IDF’s use of AI-driven systems in the Gaza offensive and the loosening of safeguards to protect civilians, including the New York Times, Washington Post and Associated Press.”
While Netanyahu has claimed that Israeli military safeguards have led to one of the lowest civilian-combatant ratios in modern warfare, that has been challenged by the IDF’s own leaked casualty assessments, by the UN’s commission of inquiry in 2024 and research by NGOs including Action on Armed Violence.