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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J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami speaks at the 5th J Street Conference, March 21, 2015. (Photo courtesy of J Street)
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As liberal Zionism finds itself in the middle of its latest battle for survival, J Street reconsiders forbidden alliances and what it means to be ‘pro-Israel.’ By Soleiman Moustafa Sitting on every seat in the massive auditorium hosting the opening session of J Street’s 5th annual conference last month was a bookmark emblazoned with the a map and…
By +972 Magazine April 6, 2015
Khalida Jarrar, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and a leader in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, poses for a photo showing an internal expulsion order given to her by Israeli soldiers who invaded her home in Ramallah in the early hours of August 20, Ramallah, West Bank, August 27, 2014. Jarrar was ordered to go to Jericho within 24 hours, but she refused to sign the paper. She is determined to stay in a protest tent in front of the Palestinian Council in Ramallah until the decision is revoked.
Israel puts feminist Palestinian MP in admin detention
Less than a week after she was arrested by Israeli soldiers, PLC member Khalida Jarrar was placed under administrative detention for six months. Khalida Jarrar, a Palestinian feminist activist and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), will be placed under six months of administrative detention. The order, which was approved by a military…
By Haggai Matar April 5, 2015
Still from Kamal Hachkar's film 'Echoes From the Mellah.'
Longing for Jewish-Muslim co-existence in Morocco
Kamal Hachkar’s film, ‘Echoes From the Mellah,’ looks at Morocco’s history, which not long ago included Jews and Muslims living together in peaceful co-existence, and serves as an important resource for building a vision of a shared Jewish-Palestinian existence. By Ronit Chacham (translated by Noam Benishei) The January 6 screening of Kamal Hachkar’s “Tinghir-Jerusalem: Echoes From…
By Haokets April 5, 2015
U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at their joint press conference in Jerusalem (photo: Koby Gidon / Government Press Office)
America’s choice on Iran: Obama’s peace or Netanyahu’s war
If Bibi, the Israel lobby and the GOP stymie this historic nuclear deal, it will be very bad for Israel, America and America’s Jews. Anybody who thinks Obama has won, that Israel and the Israel lobby and the Republicans are just going to concede the Iran nuclear deal without a fight, could not be more…
By Larry Derfner April 5, 2015
Manal Tamimi making a V sign after she was shot with life ammunition, during the weekly protest against the occupation, Nabi Saleh, West Bank, April 3, 2015. Anne Paq / Activestills.org
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Photos and report: Anne Paq / Activestills.org Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition against nonviolent Palestinian protesters in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh on Friday. Two Palestinians were wounded, including activist Manal Tamimi. Tamimi was shot in her leg as she was standing and talking to her friends, only minutes after the protest had begun, along…
By Activestills April 5, 2015
A Palestinian youth jumps to avoid a water canon during clashes with the Israeli army at the weekly protest against the occupation, Kafr Qaddum, West Bank, March 13, 2015. Locals began to organize demonstrations in July 2011 to protest the blocking of the main road linking Kafr Qaddum to Nablus. (photo: Activestills.org)
The Month in Photos: Gaza, elections, and Land Day
Palestinians mark Land Day across Israel and the West Bank, politics take center stage in Israel, laid off workers take to the streets, a number of social and political struggles intensify, Gaza struggles to recover from last summer’s devastating war, and Palestinians and Israelis continue popular resistance against the occupation.
By Activestills April 3, 2015
Israeli army soldiers take part in the search operation for three kidnapped Israeli teenagers, on June 17, 2014 in the West Bank town of Hebron. [File photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Israeli fakes own kidnapping, Palestinians pay the price
Israelis were enraged by the ‘prank’ yet somehow managed to ignore the army’s violent response of house-to-house searches, closures and arrests. By Yael Marom About the same time that news of a nuclear deal with Iran made its way into the headlines Thursday night, reports came out about the suspected kidnapping of an Israeli in the…
By +972 Magazine April 3, 2015
EU High Representative Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif address reporters following negotiations, April 2, 2015. (State Dept. photo)
Israel media survey: Iran deal, not so bad after all?
A number of senior columnists and reporters say that Israel should be pleasantly surprised by the deal struck between the P5+1 and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program. Netanyahu — and his mouthpiece — digs in his heels. Although the pushback from the Prime Minister’s Office was immediate and unchanged, many senior figures in the…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man April 3, 2015
The Roman aqueduct in Wadi Qelt, Jordan Valley, West Bank (Photo: Angela Gruber)
In the occupied West Bank, even hiking is political
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By +972 Magazine April 3, 2015
Two caravans form a new Israeli settler outpost on land belonging to the West Bank village of Jayyous, January 28, 2013. The structures were placed just one week prior, and are already being connected to water lines from the nearby settlement Zufin. The location was likely chosen to disrupt implementation of a 2009 Israeli court decision to re-route the separation barrier, returning a portion of Jayyous's land to the other side of the fence, including the area that the outpost now occupies. (Photo by: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)
The lie Israel sold the world — settlement ‘outposts’
The Israeli government’s policy proves that the outposts are effectively settlements – only you’ll never hear them being called that.  “The outposts are not ‘hilltop youth.’ It is a carefully planned seizure of strategic points, the outposts have been coordinated with the prime minister.” – Adi Minz, former Yesha Council Chairman, 2004. By Yossi Gurvitz for…
By +972 Magazine April 3, 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. Days away from Israeli elections, a ‘sour mood’ pervades the Haredi street
  3. ‘We’ve paid the price for war. We haven’t yet reaped the fruits of peace’
  4. Jewish Israelis must do more than stand together with Palestinians
  5. Israel’s far right has unprecedented power. Why isn’t it satisfied?
  1. ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
  2. Why ‘NAZA’ terrifies Israel's liberal elite
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  4. ‘The Gaza Holocaust won't be forgotten’: An Israeli musician screams into the void
  5. ‘NAZA’ is forcing Israelis to reflect. But we Palestinians are not your mirror