Israel’s 2026 Elections: The Struggle for Leadership of the Right – A Crisis of Legitimacy, a Battle for Institutions, and the Limits of Change in a Colonial State

The 26th Knesset elections, scheduled for 27 October 2026, is taking place at a time unlike any previous election cycle. They are the first general election since 7 October 2023 and the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, and the spread of the conflict to the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. They also follow the rift caused by the plan to weaken the judiciary, and the collapse of trust between the government and large sections of the army, the security services, and the families of the dead and prisoners. Therefore, the vote is not merely about replacing a government; it is a test of the Israeli regime’s capacity for the peaceful transfer of power, and a determination of who will write the official narrative of the failure, and who will control the institutions that produce decision-making, power and legitimacy.

The Palestinian interpretation of these elections begins with a rejection of the terminology Israel uses to describe its internal conflict. Excessive attention to the Israeli press and the translation of its daily polarisation have led to its categorisations seeping into the Arab sphere: the right versus the centre, extremists versus moderates, Netanyahu versus change. However, these concepts were born out of an Israeli conflict over the form of the state and how it is governed, and they do not retain the same meaning when applied to the occupation, settlement and war against the Palestinians. Eisenkot, Bennett or Lapid may be more committed to judicial independence, less eager to subjugate the media and security services, and more keen to maintain relations with the United States; but that does not make them a ‘peace camp’, nor does it place them outside the Zionist consensus on control over the Palestinians. Therefore, these elections are not a contest between the right and the left; there is currently no organized Israeli left-wing movement capable of counterbalancing the right, particularly on Palestinian and Arab issues. At its core, it is a battle over who leads the right: Netanyahu and his nationalist-religious and Haredi coalition, or an institutional security leadership represented, to varying degrees, by Eisenkot, Bennett, Lieberman and others?

What are Israelis voting for?

The Knesset consists of 120 seats, and a government requires the support of at least 61 members. Israel is a single constituency, and voting takes place via closed lists, with seats then allocated proportionally to those lists that exceed the 3.25 per cent threshold. Thirty-eight lists have been submitted, but this large number does not mean that all of them are genuine political forces; a single list may comprise several parties, as in the case of the Religious Zionism–Zohot alliance, the Bennett–Lapid alliance, and the Joint List, which brings together the Hadash, the Ra’am and the Arab Movement for Change.

The significance of the system is not merely technical. The threshold was raised in 2014 within a political context aimed, amongst other things, at making it more difficult for small Arab lists to enter the Knesset and pushing them towards defeat. However, the spell has backfired: the threshold now also threatens small right-wing and Kahanism lists, and the failure of any one of them could result in tens of thousands of votes being wasted and shift the balance of the blocs. As for the surplus vote agreement, it benefits lists that have cleared the threshold, but does not save a list that remains below it. Therefore, one must always distinguish between the party that wins the most votes and the bloc capable of securing 61 seats; electoral victory does not automatically equate to the ability to govern.

Three pressing questions ahead of the elections

Before the debate on policies and political parties, Israel is grappling with three questions that it would traditionally have dismissed as problems specific to weak states or Third World regimes. The very fact that these have become the subject of serious debate indicates an erosion of trust in the shared rules governing political conflict:

• Will the elections actually take place? The fear is that a state of emergency or a major confrontation with Iran or Lebanon will be used as a pretext for postponement. We have no evidence of a ready-made plan to instigate a war, nor can the government extend the Knesset’s term by unilateral decision; yet the continuation of the war gives Netanyahu the ability to shift the agenda and present himself as a leader who must not be replaced whilst danger looms.
• Will the elections be fair? The danger is not limited to ballot box fraud, but also includes digital disinformation, the use of state resources, pressure on the media, challenges to the Electoral Commission, attempts to exclude Arab lists, and the fabrication of a narrative of manipulation before the results are announced.
• Will the ruling right-wing accept the result? It may accept the figures whilst rejecting the legitimacy of the government formed as a result, particularly if that government requires Palestinian support. In that case, the parliamentary majority might be described as a coup against the will of the Jewish majority, and the battle would turn into a campaign against the judiciary, the media, the Electoral Commission and the Knesset members themselves.

Who is leading the right?

Netanyahu’s camp comprises Likud, Shas, Yahadut HaTorah, Jewish Power, Religious Zionism (in alliance with Zohot), and smaller religious factions. This camp combines Likud’s populist nationalism, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir’s messianic settlement project, and the sectoral interests of the Haredim. Netanyahu leads it through a simple equation: protecting his allies from prosecution, conscription and accountability, in exchange for protection from political downfall and the consequences of his trial and the 7 October inquiry committee.

In contrast, the anti-Netanyahu camp comprises disparate right-wing, security-oriented and liberal forces: the Yashar Party led by Gadi Eisenkot; the Bennett–Lapid alliance; Yisrael Beiteinu led by Avigdor Lieberman; the Democrats led by Yair Golan; Blue and White; and the Reservists’ Party. What unites these forces is their opposition to the personalisation of governance, their relative defence of the judiciary, and their calls for the conscription of the Haredim and for an official commission of inquiry. However, they differ on the economy, religion and the state, and, for the most part, do not offer a plan to end the occupation.

Netanyahu’s contenders do not represent a departure from the right, but rather different visions for its leadership. Eisenkot presents himself as a representative of the security-oriented right, focusing on restoring the efficiency of the state and the army following 7 October; however, he rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state within the political horizon he outlines, and supports the expansion of settlements in Area C . Even his objection to the ‘E1’ project does not stem from a principled rejection of settlement, but rather from a calculation of the political and regional costs and the timing of its implementation. As for Bennett, who comes from the leadership of the Settlers’ Council, he has for years advocated the annexation of Area C and keeping Palestinian communities under fragmented self-rule in Areas A and B. Lieberman represents a secular nationalist right, whose internal conflict centres on the Haredim and conscription, not on the occupation or settlement. They may show greater respect for institutional norms than Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, but they do not offer a plan to dismantle the structure of colonial control. The difference between them and Netanyahu concerns who manages this structure and how, not its existence in principle.

The political landscape and the position of the Arab parties

Politically, the landscape appears to consist of three camps rather than two. The first is the Netanyahu camp, which brings together Likud, the religious right and the Haredi forces. The second is an anti-Netanyahu Zionist camp, led by figures with military or right-wing backgrounds such as Eisenkot, Bennett and Lieberman, and flanked by weaker liberal forces. The third comprises the Palestinian lists: the Joint List, the United Arab List, and smaller Arab-Jewish partnership lists. Placing these lists in a third camp does not mean they are alike; the Joint List brings together diverse nationalist, democratic and social orientations, whilst the United Arab List offers a pragmatic coalition approach focusing on crime, housing, budgets and the recognition of villages, and the partnership lists are exploring the possibility of building an Arab-Jewish political framework outside the confines of rigid nationalist divisions.

The issue is that, whilst Palestinian votes may be mathematically necessary to form an alternative government, they remain excluded from the definition of a legitimate government in the eyes of the majority of Zionist forces. The Arab party can support a government from the outside or participate in it, as happened in 2021, but its opponents will portray the government as hostage to those who do not recognise the Jewish character of the state or who support ‘the enemy’. This reveals that Palestinian citizenship within Israel operates under conditional terms: Palestinians vote and hold seats in the Knesset, but their vote is called into question when it comes to determining who governs. The position of the Arab parties is therefore not merely a marginal electoral one; it is the clearest test of the limits of Israeli ethnic democracy.

The opposition’s slogans should not be judged without considering its track record in government. In 2021, right-wing, centrist and liberal parties, with the participation of the United Arab List, succeeded in removing Netanyahu and forming what was termed in Israel the ‘Government of Change’. That government made a difference in the management of certain civil and institutional affairs, as well as in the relationship between the government and the judiciary, and demonstrated that the participation of an Arab party in the coalition is practically feasible. However, it did not translate internal ‘change’ into a change in the position of Palestinians within the Israeli project.

Settlement activity, house demolitions, displacement and military control continued during its term; indeed, settlement plans and tenders expanded during its first year, according to data from the ‘Peace Now’ movement. This was not a deviation from the government’s programme, as the Palestinian issue had been sidelined in advance to ensure the coalition’s survival. This experience serves as a practical test for the upcoming elections: an alternative government could limit the influence of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, restore some powers to the judiciary, the army and professional bodies, and be more mindful of the international cost; but, in its current composition, it does not have a plan to end the occupation or dismantle the settlements. The 2021 government changed the way the state is run, but it did not alter the structure governing the Palestinians.

As for opinion polls, they generally indicate a narrowing gap between the camps and the inability of either side to win the election on its own; however, they should not be treated as a foregone conclusion. The political landscape changes with shifts in voter turnout, the direction of undecided votes, the ability of smaller lists to cross the electoral threshold, the voting rate within the Palestinian community, and any security developments preceding the ballot. Moreover, the polls do not readily answer the crucial question: will a number of parties that reject Netanyahu be able to agree, after the elections, on a prime minister, a programme and the limits of Arab partnership? For this reason, the landscape of alliances is more important than the fluctuating figures for each list.

First Israel and Second Israel

The political divide is built upon an older ethnic, class-based and cultural divide. The term ‘First Israel’ refers to the secular Ashkenazi elites who have historically dominated the judiciary, universities, the media, the economy, and the leadership of the army and the state. ‘Second Israel’ refers to the Mizrahi, traditional and religious sectors who felt marginalised, but who then found a path to representation and power in the Likud coup of 1977 and the subsequent rise of Shas. This classification is by no means absolute: not all Mizrahim are right-wing, nor are all Ashkenazim liberal, but it explains a significant part of political allegiances and polarisation.

The irony is that Netanyahu himself is Ashkenazi, yet he has succeeded in portraying his trial and the conflict surrounding it as an attempt by the old elites to reclaim the state from ‘Second Israel’. Consequently, sections of his support base do not view his defence merely as the defence of an individual, but as the protection of their social standing and a historic reversal of Ashkenazi hegemony. Shas gives this division its Sephardi Haredi character, whilst Yahadut HaTorah represents the Ashkenazi Haredi perspective. Despite the differences in their collective memory, the two parties are united on the priorities of exemption from military conscription, religious education and sectoral budgets; in other words, the Haredi alliance with Netanyahu is not a complete ideological alignment, but rather a deal based on survival and mutual interests.

The Right is bigger than a right-wing government, and settlement as salvation

The dominance of the Right cannot be explained solely as the result of Netanyahu’s coalition manoeuvring. The Right in Israel is bigger than a right-wing government, and the rise of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir is not so much the cause of social change as one of its political consequences. The current government was preceded by long-standing shifts in education, the military, culture, the settlement movement and religious institutions, which have moved the settlers and religious Zionism from a position of exerting pressure on the state to one of participating in the running of its institutions and setting its priorities. These forces do not view settlement as a negotiable policy, but rather as a stage in a religious and historical journey towards Jewish sovereignty over the entire land. What they regard as achievements include the legalisation of outposts, the expansion of settlements, the ‘Israelisation’ of civil administration powers, the weakening of the Palestinian Authority, the undermining of the possibility of a Palestinian state, and the expansion of the presence of religious figures and settlers in the army, the police and government ministries.

For this reason, the Jewish and religious-Zionist forces do not treat the possibility of losing power as a normal political cycle, but as a threat to a project of redemption of which much has already been realised. They do not wish to retreat a single step from these gains. Indeed, Smotrich’s influence cannot be measured solely by the number of seats his party holds; his true power stems from the Ministry of Finance and the civil administrative powers in the West Bank – that is, from control over the apparatus that is reshaping the Palestinian landscape. As for Ben-Gvir, he has turned the Ministry of National Security into a platform for arming the Jewish community, intensifying repression in Jerusalem, the interior and the prisons, and moving the kahanism from the margins to the centre of governmental legitimacy.

The elections are a battle over state institutions

The conflict is not just over seats in the Knesset, but also over the judiciary, the media, the police, the army, the Shin Bet, the Mossad and the Prison Service. In the judiciary, Netanyahu and his allies want to curtail the Supreme Court’s oversight, alter the balance of power in the appointment of judges, weaken the role of the Attorney General, and expand the government’s ability to act without constraints. They present this as a restoration of majority rule, whilst their opponents see it as an authoritarian coup and a means of shielding the Prime Minister from accountability.

The war on the media, in some of its tactics, resembles Viktor Orbán’s model in Hungary: there is no need to shut down all platforms; it is sufficient to weaken public and professional media, alter regulatory bodies, reward loyalist platforms, and cultivate an audience that lives within an alternative information ecosystem. The rhetoric of treason portrays journalists, judges and professional civil servants as part of an alleged ‘deep state’. And when a shared truth is lost, it becomes possible to describe an electoral defeat as a conspiracy rather than a result.

As for the security institutions, the conflict within them remains unresolved. The right is attempting to subordinate appointments and professional ethos to political leadership, whilst senior figures in the army and the Shin Bet fear the politicisation of the agencies and being held solely responsible for the events of 7 October. The police and the Prison Service are more vulnerable to direct takeover: the powers of the Minister of National Security to direct police policy have been expanded, and the management of prisons has become linked to a punitive and vindictive policy towards Palestinian prisoners. The elections therefore also concern who holds the levers of coercion within the state, not merely who occupies the office of Prime Minister.

7 October and two opposing narratives

7 October is at the heart of the propaganda campaign. The narrative put forward by Likud and the coalition does not merely apportion blame; at times, it verges on a conspiracy theory: the security services possessed the information, concealed it or ignored it, failed to alert Netanyahu, and then attempted to pin the failure on him. This narrative is dangerous because it does not merely discuss professional misconduct; it sows the suspicion that state institutions colluded or sacrificed security in order to bring down the Prime Minister. Conversely, the opposition argues that Netanyahu and his government pursued a policy of containing Hamas, ignored strategic warnings, divided the Palestinian Authority, and ran the country according to the logic of political survival; they therefore bear ultimate responsibility.

Here, the commission of inquiry becomes the decisive battleground. Netanyahu’s opponents want an official, independent commission with access to documents and the power to summon witnesses, whilst he rejects any arrangement that grants the judiciary and institutional elites the authority to appoint the commission and write the narrative of the failure. The next government will determine the period covered by the inquiry and how responsibility is apportioned between the political leadership, the military and the Shin Bet. In this sense, the election is a vote on who will write the official history of October 7, and who will bear the political – and possibly legal – consequences.

The criminal trial compounds the existential nature of the battle for Netanyahu. Losing power does not automatically mean his conviction or imprisonment, but it deprives him of the power of office and his ability to influence legislation, appointments and opportunities for a pardon or settlement, and may trigger a battle for his succession within Likud. He is therefore not contesting the election as a leader who may return to the opposition, but as a politician who sees continued rule as a personal, familial and ideological shield.

Palestine and the Regional Fronts – A Power Struggle within the Right

In the West Bank, settlement expansion and creeping annexation are likely to continue regardless of who becomes Prime Minister. The pace, legal form and extent of friction with Washington and Europe may vary, but no force within the major Zionist political contest promises to dismantle the settlement infrastructure or end military control. In Gaza, positions converge on preventing Hamas’s return to power, making any withdrawal conditional on disarmament, and retaining the freedom to conduct military operations. The difference is that Netanyahu and the religious right are more explicitly opening the door to displacement and settlement, whilst their opponents propose a more institutionalised security administration that is mindful of international legitimacy.

The same pattern is evident regionally. In Lebanon, Syria and Iran, voices opposing Netanyahu sometimes put forward even more hawkish proposals: expanding air strikes, establishing security zones, preventing the rebuilding of Hezbollah, and escalating the confrontation with Iran. Part of this can be interpreted as propaganda designed to embarrass Netanyahu and strip him of his image of resolve, but it also reflects a shared ideological ground within a colonialist society that views military force as a natural tool for reshaping the region. Therefore, Netanyahu’s downfall does not necessarily mean an easing of the war; it may result in a leadership that seeks to prove itself more adept at waging it.

As for Jordan, it does not occupy the centre of the party campaign, but it is present as a security factor and as a party required to bear the consequences of Israeli policies: controlling the borders, preventing smuggling, confronting Iran, and absorbing the pressures arising from the West Bank and Jerusalem. The danger for Jordan lies not merely in a declared party programme to deport Palestinians there, but in the accumulation of annexation and displacement policies that reproduce the idea of an ‘alternative homeland’ as a regional reality, even when it is not mentioned by name. In Syria, the desire to prevent Iranian entrenchment intersects with Israel’s self-perception as the guardian of a security sphere extending beyond its borders, thereby opening the door to buffer zones, sustained strikes and, perhaps, the political reshaping of the Syrian sphere.

This escalation cannot be separated from the shifts within Israeli Jewish society. The long war has not led to a broad moral reckoning, but rather has broadened acceptance of collective punishment, displacement and the unrestricted use of force, and has entrenched the perception of Palestinians as a security or demographic problem rather than a people with rights. The parties compete to appeal to this sentiment: some through the language of revenge and religious salvation, and others through the language of deterrence, efficiency and a professional army. The latter approach appears less violent, but it may confer on the policies themselves broader international legitimacy and greater capacity for implementation. It is therefore incorrect to gauge a party’s danger solely by the virulence of its slogans; a disciplined institutional project may be better able to consolidate control than extremist rhetoric that clashes with the wider world.

What might change, and what will remain the same?

If Netanyahu loses, there may be real change within the Israeli system: the personalisation of governance will recede, the Supreme Court, the Attorney General and the regulatory bodies will regain some of their independence, an official commission of inquiry into the failure of 7 October may be formed, and the direct influence of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich over the police, prisons and the administration of the West Bank will wane. The new government might coordinate more closely with the army, the United States and Europe, and be more cautious about providing settlers with public political cover. These are real differences that cannot be denied, because the nature of the establishment and the extent of its lawlessness affect the lives of Palestinians and the level of violence perpetrated against them.

However, it would be a mistake to portray these differences as ‘Israel’s return to moderation’. There is no standard Israeli ‘moderate’ position from which Netanyahu’s government has deviated and to which the state will return once he falls. Control over Jerusalem and the West Bank, the protection of settlements, the rejection of the right of return, Jewish national supremacy, treating Gaza as a security problem, and the use of force to reshape the region are elements that predate the current government and extend beyond it. An alternative government might be slower to annex, more sensitive to the international cost, and less willing to clash with the judiciary and the military establishment, but it might be more efficient at managing, marketing and defending the occupation internationally. Therefore, the precise comparison is not between extremism and moderation, but between a messianic and crude management of the colonial project and an institutionalised, security-oriented management of the same project.

Post-election scenarios

Knowing which party comes top is not enough to predict the composition of the government. There are four key possibilities:

• A majority for Netanyahu: This would grant him fresh legitimacy to continue weakening the judiciary and the media, expand the influence of the religious and settler right, and allow for a commission of inquiry that is partly subject to the coalition’s agenda, whilst seeking a political or legal way out of his trial.
• An anti-Netanyahu Zionist majority: This would end his personal leadership and might restore some independence to the institutions, but it would not bring about a shift to the left or a Palestinian settlement. It would also trigger a succession struggle within Likud and over the leadership of the entire right.
• An alternative requiring Arab support: This is the most sensitive scenario. The Joint List or the United List could provide support from within or outside the government, but the right wing would challenge its legitimacy and portray it as a government based on votes that are nationally illegitimate, thereby increasing the likelihood of incitement and political violence.
• A deadlock without 61 seats: The failure of lists to reach the threshold could result in a minority government, a government of necessity, defections, or new elections. In the meantime, a caretaker government would continue to manage the wars, investigations and sensitive appointments.

A struggle over who controls the state

These elections are of the utmost gravity because they bring together three levels at a single moment: Netanyahu’s personal and legal fate; the future of the alliance between the populist right, the Haredim and religious Zionism; and control over the judiciary, the media, the security services and the narrative surrounding 7 October. If the result is close or a government is formed with Palestinian support, the conflict may shift from parliamentary competition to a rejection of legitimacy and mass mobilisation on the streets. Internal conflict is not inevitable, but it is a realistic possibility when one side believes that its defeat means not only the loss of the government, but also the loss of the state, the project and the history it has built.

The elections may bring an end to Netanyahu’s rule, but they will not end the dominance of the right. At their core lies a choice between a populist, nationalist-religious right that seeks to subjugate institutions to the will of the Jewish majority, and an institutional, security-oriented right that seeks to restore the state, its efficiency and its legitimacy whilst preserving its Zionist and colonial structure. Therefore, the Palestinian question is not: who will win in Israel? But rather: which form of colonial power will take charge of waging war and exercising control, and what scope will the contradictions within Israeli society allow for Palestinian and Arab action?

The other danger is that the Israeli elections will once again turn into a programme of Palestinian waiting: waiting for Netanyahu to fall, then waiting for a government to be formed, then waiting for the resumption of negotiations or a change in the US position. The elections are an important political variable that must be understood and for whose outcomes we must prepare, but they are no substitute for a Palestinian strategy. Fundamentally, significant shifts in Israeli policy towards the Palestinians have historically not resulted from changes in government alone, but from shifts in the balance of power and the cost of continuing the occupation. Therefore, the Palestinian question should not be which Israeli government we prefer, but rather how we deal with the government that will be formed, and how we prevent differences in the tools used to manage the colonial project from obscuring the steadfastness of its fundamental objectives.

References

• The Institute for Palestinian Studies, General Guide to Israel, chapter on Israeli political parties and the political system.
• The Palestinian Centre for Israeli Studies ‘Madar’, ‘The 25th Knesset elections will produce the most extreme government yet’, 6 November 2022.
• Antoine Shalhat, ‘The Israeli Right Has Long Held a Majority in the Knesset’, Madar Centre, 6 November 2022.
• The Israel Democracy Institute, Guide to Parties and Lists for the 2026 Elections: https://www.idi.org.il/policy/parties-and-elections/elections/2026-1/
• The Israeli Central Elections Committee, The Electoral System and Seat Allocation According to the Bader-Ofer Method.
• Abdul-Qadir Badawi, ‘The Illusion of a Return to Moderation Hanging Over the Upcoming Israeli Elections’, Al-Tara Sawt, 11 September 2026.
• Chatham House, “Israel’s General Election Will Be Like No Other Before,” 22 July 2026.
• Yoav Peled, “The Rise of Ethno-National Populism in Israel,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 2025.

Momi Dahan, “Voting Gap by Origin,” CESifo Working Paper N