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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A Palestinian youth displays a black sponge-tipped bullet shot by Israeli police near the Shuafat Refugee Camp in East Jerusalem, November 7, 2014. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Losing sight of the consequences of ‘less-lethal’ weapons
A number of Palestinian children have lost some or all of their sight in the past year as a result of Israeli crowd control measures. Rights group appeals to the attorney general. Following a series of shootings by Israeli security forces which have caused Palestinian minors to lose all or part of their eyesight, Zakariya…
By Natasha Soffer-Roth April 12, 2015
U.S. Secretary of State Kerry, U.S. Energy Secretary Moniz Stand With Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif and Vice President of Iran for Atomic Energy Salehi Before Meeting in Switzerland, March 16, 2015. (State Dept. photo)
How Israel can stop a nuclear arms race in the Middle East
While Israel is busy wringing its hands over a nuclear deal over which it has no control, it should instead be looking at processes it can influence. By Sharon Dolev People in Israel tend to see the nuclear agreement with Iran as an isolated, historical event, one that will either save Israel or place it…
By +972 Magazine April 12, 2015
Israeli police with black sponge-tipped bullets in East Jerusalem, November 12, 2014. (Photo: Faiz Abu Rmeleh/Activestills.org)
WATCH: Exposing procedures of police violence in Israel
Police in Israel recently began using a new type of sponge-tipped bullets that cause more extreme bodily harm, including the death of one teenager last year. Social TV interviews Atty. Anne Sucui of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), who explains that the Israel Police attempted to hide changes to its procedures from…
By Social TV April 12, 2015
Sima Kavlo, living in the apartment for 34 years, after her parent passed away. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Poverty kills: Survival and struggle in ‘the other Israel’
No matter how much I look, I never seem to find any news items about those whom Israeli society sacrifices on a daily basis, slowly, until they turn to dust. By Yael Cohen-Rimer (translated by Yudit Ilani and Shaked Spier) She is somewhere outside, the 13-year-old girl who was sent by welfare services to step…
By Haokets April 11, 2015
Sinai beach. (photo: Orly Noy)
Why I took my family to Sinai for our Passover vacation
While Sinai used to be one of the most popular tourist destinations for Israeli Jews, today it is nearly abandoned. But neither the threat of Al-Qaida attacks, ISIS kidnappings or her friends’ pleading could stop Orly Noy from going back to her own private heaven. The bottom line is this: we went to Sinai for…
By Orly Noy April 11, 2015
An ultra-orthodox Jewish man walks in the depopulated Palestinian village of Lifta, located on the edge of West Jerusalem, Israel, March 4, 2014. During the Nakba, the residents of Lifta fled attacks by Zionist militias beginning in December 1947, resulting in the complete evacuation of the village by February 1948. (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)
The road out of the occupation runs through the Nakba
As long as Israelis deny, distort and repress the expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians, we will never truly accept and absorb the end of the occupation. It is difficult to find a view in Lifta that isn’t marred by the words ‘death to Arabs’ graffitied in Hebrew on its hollow buildings. Someone even took the…
By Natasha Soffer-Roth April 11, 2015
The Mimouna Festival, marking the end of Passover, is celebrated in a special tent in Jerusalem, April 16, 1990. (photo: Alpert Nathan/GPO)
Ten things you didn’t know about Mimouna
Mimouna, the traditional festival celebrated by North African Jews on the last day of Passover, is often overlooked when discussing the Jewish holiday of liberation. Here are 10 things you might not know about the celebration that once brought Jews and Muslims together.  By Ophir Toubul 1. The name of the holiday, “Mimouna,” has several…
By Cafe Gibraltar April 10, 2015
An Israeli soldier warns photographers during clashes following the funeral of Mustafa Tamimi in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, December 11, 2011. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
The operational logic behind terrorizing Palestinians
Four Israeli soldiers carry out a routine procedure of ‘showing presence’ by throwing a smoke grenade into a Palestinian home. Its real purpose? Terrorizing innocent people. By Yossi Gurvitz for Yesh Din The incident in question, given the daily routine of the occupation, is relatively minor. On December 3rd, 2007, Adnan Abu Haniyeh, a resident of…
By +972 Magazine April 10, 2015
Activists demonstrate against the Prawer Plan at Herod’s Gate in East Jerusalem, November 30, 2013. The Prawer Plan, if implemented, will displace tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens of Israel. (Photo: Activestills.org)
Stop calling us ‘Israeli Arabs’
The phrase ‘Israeli Arabs’ is meant to divide us from the rest of the Palestinian people. Thankfully, more and more young Palestinian citizens are no longer scared to openly confront their own Pharaoh and reclaim their story. “So explain it to me again,” Amanda repeated. “How can it be that while Israel celebrates its independence, or…
By Rami Younis April 9, 2015
A view of the Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salam village, August 17, 2013. (Photo by Math Knight/CC)
Living alongside one other isn’t necessarily coexistence
A mixed Jewish-Arab couple is discouraged from applying to live in what many look to as a model for coexistence in Israel-Palestine. By Orna Akad (translated by Ofer Neiman) No, this is not a new book which I have just published, nor is it a new play. This is my life with Fouad, which has given…
By +972 Magazine April 9, 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