Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Hatikva Market in Tel Aviv as part of the Likud party’s election campaign, October 22, 2026. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

50 shades of right: An Israeli election primer

While Netanyahu’s bloc adds more extremists to its ranks, his opponents are impeding their own path to power by refusing to work with Arab parties.
By Ben Reiff
Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh, surrounded by MK Ahmad Tibi and Joint List chairman Yousef Jabareen, at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem for a hearing on the Central Elections Committee’s decision to disqualify candidates and parties from running in the upcoming Knesset elections, October 1, 2026. (Oren Ziv)

Israel’s election won’t change the renewed reality of political apartheid

Abu Shehadeh’s disqualification sends a clear message: Jewish-majority state institutions now determine who represents Palestinian citizens.
By Areej Sabbagh-Khoury
Election campaign billboards featuring Yashar party chairman Gadi Eisenkot and Likud party chairman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alongside opposition leaders, displayed on a road in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, October 17, 2026. (Sharon Leibel/Flash90)

Eisenkot is trying to outflank Netanyahu on the right. It’s a failed strategy

The more hawkish the opposition leader is, the harder it is to explain what alternative he offers — and he’s not the first to make that mistake.
By Amos Brison
Finance Minister and Religious Zionist Party chairman Bezalel Smotrich tours the Mahane Yehuda Market as part of the party’s election campaign, in Jerusalem, October 9, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Why Smotrich still defines the horizon of Israeli politics

Israeli liberals have acceded to the maximalist vision of the MK's 2017 ‘Decisive Plan’ — while claiming to oppose ‘messianic’ violence.
By Avi-ram Tzoreff
Leena Dallasheh (courtesy)
PODCAST

What’s at stake for Palestinian citizens in Israel’s election?

Leena Dallasheh discusses the echoes of military rule in today’s crackdown on Palestinian dissent, and the struggle for a more substantive form of citizenship.
By +972 Magazine
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By Haggai Matar April 19, 2015
A teacher inspects the damage in the aftermath of an arson attack that targeted first-grade classrooms at a bilingual Jewish-Arab school near the Palestinian neighbourhood of Beit Safafa, in southern Jerusalem, November 30, 2014. Anti-Arab slogans were scrawled on the walls in Hebrew reading: "Death to Arabs", and "There's no coexistence with cancer."
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By Orly Noy April 18, 2015
Soldiers patrol one of the entrances to the West Bank village Hizma. (photo: Tamar Fleishman)
Israeli army encloses 7,000 Palestinians in West Bank village
IDF openly tells the 7,000 residents of Hizma that they are being collectively punished for the stone-throwing of a few Palestinians. The Israeli army and Border Police closed off both entrances to the Palestinian village of Hizma in the West Bank on Monday afternoon, in response to what the military claimed were incidents of stone-throwing…
By Natasha Soffer-Roth April 18, 2015
Protesters carry a Palestinian man who was injured during a protest marking Palestinian Prisoners' day, outside Ofer military prison, near the West Bank town of Betunia, April 16, 2015. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
PHOTOS: Palestinians mark Prisoners Day, IDF responds with live fire
Thousands of Palestinians mark Prisoners Day across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. President Abbas calls for releasing Palestinian prisoners, while Hamas calls for kidnapping Israelis. By Oren Ziv / Activestills and Haggai Matar Hundreds of Palestinians, Israelis and international activists marched in the West Bank village of Bil’in on Friday to mark Palestinian…
By Activestills April 17, 2015
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The High Court decision on the ‘boycott law’ uses the word terror 11 times, likens BDS supporters to Holocaust deniers and quotes a right-wing columnist who makes it his duty to target boycott supporters. By Yael Marom The justices of Israel’s High Court upheld the controversial “boycott law” Wednesday, giving ground for individuals to sue…
By +972 Magazine April 17, 2015
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry greets Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on March 20, 2015, in Lausanne, Switzerland, before their advisers resumed negotiations about the future of Iran's nuclear program. (State Department photo)
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By +972 Magazine April 17, 2015
Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks at Yad Vashem during the Holocaust Memorial Day Ceremony, April 15, 2016. (photo: Haim Zach/GPO)
Every day is Holocaust Day in Israel
Netanyahu talks about Iran every single day. Today was the one day he shouldn’t have.  Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel. But if someone had landed here from another planet, they wouldn’t necessarily catch on. They might find it hard to  commemorate the Jewish lives taken in Europe during World War II, and instead be…
By Mairav Zonszein April 16, 2015
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You can boycott anything in Israel — except the occupation
The ‘boycott law’ won’t put an end to the BDS movement — its real importance lies in the criminalization of all opposition to the occupation. A few months ago, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman called for a boycott of businesses owned by Arab citizens of Israel. Such remarks — blunt racism directed at 20 percent…
By Noam Sheizaf April 16, 2015
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‘Price tag’ settler argues in court that revenge isn’t a crime
You would think that sentencing a group of Israelis for setting fire to a Palestinian cafe is a positive development. But a closer look shows that the culture of minimizing the seriousness of price tag attacks is alive and strong.  Were people’s lives and livelihoods not at stake, it would have been an almost sublime piece of…
By Natasha Soffer-Roth April 16, 2015
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We can no longer deny the Holocaust of Libya’s Jews
I wanted to believe that my mother’s cries, who for years woke up in the middle of the night, crying in a mix of Arabic and Italian, were not heard by a single writer of Israeli history. By Yossi Sucary I wanted the believe that the Nazis’ bullets, which struck the heads of my mother’s…
By +972 Magazine April 16, 2015
Most Read
  1. 50 shades of right: An Israeli election primer
  2. ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
  3. Israel's election won't change the renewed reality of political apartheid
  4. Jewish Israelis must do more than stand together with Palestinians
  5. Eisenkot is trying to outflank Netanyahu on the right. It’s a failed strategy
  1. ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
  2. 50 shades of right: An Israeli election primer
  3. Jewish Israelis must do more than stand together with Palestinians
  4. Eisenkot is trying to outflank Netanyahu on the right. It’s a failed strategy
  5. Why Smotrich still defines the horizon of Israeli politics
  1. ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
  2. Why ‘NAZA’ terrifies Israel's liberal elite
  3. Debunking Israel’s latest list of ‘terrorist’ journalists in Gaza
  4. ‘The Gaza Holocaust won't be forgotten’: An Israeli musician screams into the void
  5. Israel’s flailing chatbot army