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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Thousands of African asylum seekers leave Holot detention center without intention to come, June 25, 2014. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Pre-army students to Netanyahu: Stop deportation of refugees
Over 130 students from pre-military academies send a letter to the prime minister, calling on him to learn the lessons of the Holocaust and put an end to Israel’s policy of deporting Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers. On the eve of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, approximately 130 students in a pre-military academy sent a letter…
By Haggai Matar April 15, 2015
BDS graffiti on Israeli separation wall, Bethlehem, West Bank, June 17, 2014. (Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)
High Court upholds controversial ‘boycott law’
High Court rejects petition against the law, gives grounds to allows individuals who want to sue anyone calling for a boycott of Israel, or ‘areas under its control.’ The High Court rejected a petition by human rights organizations, upholding the controversial “boycott law” on Wednesday. The law give grounds for individuals to sue anyone who…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man April 15, 2015
A bulldozer demolishes an apartment building in the unrecognized village Dahmash, April 15, 2015. (photo: Rami Younis)
WATCH: Israel demolishes homes in unrecognized Palestinian village
Bulldozers knocked down three buildings in the village Dahmash, just 20 minutes from Tel Aviv, contrary to a High Court ruling.  By Rami Younis and Haggai Matar Israeli bulldozers demolished three structures in the unrecognized Palestinian village Dahmash, near Lyd (Lod in Hebrew) on Wednesday morning. The demolition took place despite both a High Court…
By Rami Younis April 15, 2015
An Israeli solider with a Ruger riffle lies on the ground during a demonstration commemorating the death of Palestinian minister, Ziad Abu Ein, in the West Bank village of Turmus Ayya, north of Ramallah, December 19, 2014. (photo: Oren Ziv)
When shooting a Palestinian in the back is merely ‘reckless’
Why trust the military to investigate itself when soldiers who kill unarmed Palestinians are let off the hook time and time again? By Alma Biblash In January 2013, an Israeli soldier shot a 16-year-old Palestinian who posed absolutely no threat in his back. Samir Awad, from the village Budrus, didn’t survive the valiant military operation,…
By +972 Magazine April 15, 2015
Palestinian children in Nabi Saleh place flowers in spent tear gas canisters fired by Israeli soldiers at past protests against the occupation, April 10, 2015.
PHOTOS: Answering tear gas with flowers
Photos and text by Oren Ziv / Activestills.org Every Friday residents of the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, along with Palestinian, Israeli and international activists, attempt to march to the village’s spring. The small spring was taken over by Israeli settlers from the nearby settlement of Halamish years ago, and the Israeli army now…
By Activestills April 14, 2015
Shuafat refugee camp (Photo: Alexis Thiry)
WATCH: Jerusalem’s extraterritorial neighborhood — Shuafat Camp
The Jerusalem Municipality and Israel Police provide no services to the walled-off neighborhood of Shuafat Refugee Camp, which is inside the city of Jerusalem. Camp residents discuss what they need.
By Social TV April 14, 2015
Stock photo of a worker climbing a cellular antenna tower. (Shutterstock.com)
‘Israeli cellular companies paid to squat on Palestinian land’
The companies never even received permits to build antenna towers in the illegal West Bank settlement outpost of Migron, are now asking the courts to let them stay even after the settlement itself was demolished, Walla reports. Israel’s three major cellular companies, including the franchisee of Orange, paid rent to Israeli settlers who illegally established…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man April 14, 2015
An Israeli sniper aims a silenced Ruger 10/22 rifle from a tower in the separation wall in the West Bank town of Bethlehem during clashes with Palestinian youth, March 11, 2014. (Photo by Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)
How the Israeli army obfuscates its use of live fire against Palestinians
Recent statements by unnamed military sources attempt to confuse the issue of lower-powered but completely lethal ammunition used against Palestinians. Text and photo by: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org Let’s be clear: the Israeli military uses many kinds of weapons to kill and maim Palestinians in the West Bank. Many of them are “less-lethal” weapons intended to…
By Activestills April 13, 2015
A resident of al-Araqib approaches Israeli police during one of the dozens of times authorities demolished the unrecognized village. (Activestills.org)
Supreme Court gives al-Araqib the right to fight for its land
As far as the state was concerned, not only do the indigenous people of the Negev have no right to land, they didn’t even have the right to argue in court that they do. The Supreme Court rejects that position. By Michal Rotem For years, the battleground of the Negev Bedouin in Israel has existed…
By +972 Magazine April 13, 2015
Arab youth clash with Israeli riot police in Kafr Kanna, Israel, November 8, 2014. The protests took place after an Arab man from the village was shot and killed by Israeli policemen. (Photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Justice unlikely in deadly Kafr Kanna police shooting
Clashes break out in the town in northern Israel as police demolish local resident’s home. Knesset member warns of ‘consequences’ if the officer who shot Khair Hamdan isn’t charged. The Israeli Police’s internal affairs unit plans to close its investigation into the officer who was filmed shooting and killing Kheir Hamdan in Kafr Kanna last year, according…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man April 13, 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