The Israeli Elections

The time to elect a new Prime Minister has arrived, and Israel is being turned on its head. Like every other political or social issue to grace the public for the past few years, everyone has an opinion, and they will do anything before admitting defeat.

Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has been in charge since November 2022, and getting to that point was not easy. For those of us who remember, it felt like the whole country would descend into anarchy before a decision was reached, and the public was becoming frustrated after 5 attempts at voting. But why did it happen that way? Why could we not simply elect a leader?

The democratic system in Israel works significantly differently than it does in Canada, and each year I find myself looking it up all over again. There are many factors that go into forming an Israeli government, most of which I will not be going into right now. Here is what you need to know:

The government is run by the Knesset, or the parliament of Israel. They work together to reach decisions about the State, and they are led by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has different ministers who lead the various sects of government, and they are all part of his closest group of buddies, also known as his “coalition”. So how does a coalition form?

The Knesset is made up of many different parties, each one holding a few “seats”. The seats refer to the number of representatives that each party has in the Knesset with voting power. There are a total of 120 seats. The party that currently holds the most seats is Likud, Bibi’s party. Likud is the largest right-wing party in the Knesset, and together with multiple other parties, they hold the majority of seats in the Knesset. 

Once a party is elected, they have to form a coalition on their own, forging alliances with other parties, to form a majority government. This means that they need to hold more than half of the 120 seats, so at least 61. Likud, our current government, only holds 36 seats. However, they joined forces with many other right-wing parties to form a majority government. Once a coalition is formed, a leader is chosen, and that leader is the Prime Minister. Most of the time, the Prime Minister is the leader of the party that was originally elected, but sometimes, in order to form a coalition, sacrifices need to be made, and leadership is transferred.

When voters go to the polls on October 27th, they will not be voting for a Prime Minister, but rather a party. They can only hope that coalitions will be formed that align with their political values and that the resulting leadership will not change drastically.

So, who are the relevant parties of the 2026 election?

The biggest figure is, of course, Bibi Netanyahu. Bibi has led for a total of 19 years non-consecutively, and has never strayed from the Likud party. Likud, as mentioned above, is a right-wing party that values conservatism, zionism, and often forms a coalition with the religious parties in government. Many love Bibi; they see him as reliable and well-spoken, a good asset because of his established relationship with the US, and his strong belief in continuing to settle Israel. They believe he is a man who understands the State and can be relied on in a state of war.

However, many oppose him as well. Some believe that he gives religion too much representation, and that there isn’t enough separation between religion and state. After he joined with the alt-right Chareidi parties to form a coalition, many stopped supporting Bibi, due to the belief that Chareidim are being supported by the Israeli government with little given back in return (the issue of the Chareidi draft has been a very hot topic in Israel since the start of the war, and Bibi having them sit on his coalition does not always work in his favor). Some also believe that he should have taken responsibility for the tragedies of October 7th, and the fact that it occurred under his leadership shows a lack of diligence; many no longer trust him.

Another big candidate is Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the new Yashar party. Gadi claims to be a totally centrist government. Being in the center is hard in a volatile country like Israel, due to the extreme parties lying to both sides. Eisenkot says that he supports the Left’s ideals of drafting everyone, as well as certain freedoms that the Right does not always represent. As a former Ramat Kal (chief of general staff in the IDF), Eisenkot understands the army and vows to support our soldiers while protecting the citizens of the country. However, he also supports the Right’s ideals of settling the country, and expanding those settlements into Judea and Samaria. This is probably the second-most controversial topic in the country, with many different people having drastically different opinions about settlement. It is rare to see a party supporting both the settlements and the religious draft. Hopefully this will pan out, and it is not another idealistic dream.

On the left, we have Yair Lapid, the leader of Yesh Atid.  Lapid claims that he would not sit with the Arab leaders of the alt-left parties, despite sitting with them in the past and despite supporting a two-state solution. He believes in a democratic state where everyone can live together, even if it means giving up some of Israel’s land to form a Palestinian state. He also believes in reinforcing Israel’s security.

Some other important candidates include: 

• Benny Ganz, leader of the Blue and White Party, a centrist party focused on liberal zionism.

• Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionist Party, an alt-right party focused on ultraconservatism and religious zionism.

• Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of Otzma Yehudit, and famous for his extremist and explosive views regarding the treatment of Arabs and response to terrorism, as well as expansion and settlement. He represents some of the furthest right-wing seats in the Knesset.

• Mansour Abbas, leader of Ra’am, the Islamic party that pushes for a two-state solution.

• Yair Golan, leader of The Democrats, an alt-left party that supports liberal zionism.

• Naftali Bennett, leader of the Together Party and former Prime Minister, now a centrist who has joined forces with Yesh Atid.

There are, of course, many more options and many more important figures in this election. Each candidate has run long and complicated campaigns, which have been summarized here in the absolute simplest form.

In order to really make an informed decision, one would have to do much more research about the candidates at play and really decide what their priorities are for their leaders.

In the meantime, good luck everyone, and we’ll meet at the polls!