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
Latest
Palestinian protesters hide during clashes with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank village of Bil'in. (photo: Haitham Khatib)
New books document 10 years of protest in Bil’in
‘Occupied Palestine Through My Lens’ is a visual chronicle of the West Bank village’s struggle against the Israeli separation barrier. ‘Children of Bil’in’ is a book of portraits of youngsters from the village, the proceeds of which will benefit Palestinian children with cancer. When the bulldozers arrived in Bil’in for the first time, in February…
By Haggai Matar April 3, 2015
A Palestinian child watches as Israeli soldiers place a concrete and steel barrier to segregate Palestinian pedestrians from Israeli traffic along a road in the H2 section of Hebron, October 22, 2013. The road connects the Ibrahimi Mosque (Tomb of the Patriarchs) in Hebron's old city with the nearby Israeli settlement Kiryat Arba. Israelis are allowed to drive on the road, but Palestinians are prohibited from driving there without special permission. All settlements in the occupied Paletinian territories are illegal under international law. (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)
WATCH: IDF brings segregated streets back to Hebron
IDF re-segregates main road leading to Cave of the Patriarchs, two years after it ostensibly put an end to the policy.   Israeli human rights group B’Tselem announced Thursday that the Israeli military has renewed segregation between Jews and Palestinians on the main street leading to the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron since January. The…
By Edo Konrad April 2, 2015
Secretaries Kerry, Moniz Jot Down Notes Before P5+1 Strategic Session About Ongoing Iranian Nuclear Negotiations in Switzerland, March 30, 2015. (State Dept. photo)
The Iranian nuclear threat and other phantoms
The ‘framework agreement’ announced Thursday night in Lausanne is a lot better than no agreement. But an approach to Iran involving no sanctions and no hysteria would have been best of all. NOTE: This post has been changed to reflect the author’s happy surprise that the framework agreement was not the dud he thought it…
By Larry Derfner April 2, 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.
Israeli soldiers arrest feminist Palestinian lawmaker
Six months after she was ordered to move from her home near Ramallah to Jericho, the army arrests Palestinian parliamentarian Khalida Jarrar. She will join 16 other Palestinian lawmakers currently serving time in Israeli prisons. Israeli soldiers arrested Khalida Jarrar, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, in her home in Al-Bireh (near Ramallah) during…
By Haggai Matar April 2, 2015
Deporation of South Sudanese, Tel Aviv bus station July 11, 2012 (Activestills)
Our elected officials boast about deporting genocide survivors
Israel’s leaders are proud of themselves for deporting asylum seekers, while the state continues to trample over their rights and deceive them. What have we come to? By Moran Mekamel On Tuesday, it was announced that the government is planning to forcibly deport Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers to “third countries.” Those who refuse to leave…
By +972 Magazine April 1, 2015
Likud MK Miri Regev (Photo by Activestills.org)
More female MKs doesn’t mean a more feminist Knesset
The fact that the 20th Knesset will have a record number of female MKs does not mean they will necessarily advance women’s rights. Some of them, in fact, may end up doing just the opposite. By Samah Salaime Now that the winds have died down completely and I have finished writing all my commentary on…
By +972 Magazine April 1, 2015
Mahmoud Abbas speaks at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa 2013. (photo: World Economic Forum / Benedikt von Loebell)
Sorry Israeli leftists, I’ve got no sympathy for you
Half of Israelis are ‘stuck’ with a prime minister they didn’t want. All Palestinians are stuck with a president who lost his democratic mandate years ago. By Talal Jabari I have spoken to quite a few Israelis following Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest win at the polls earlier this month who talk about their disappointment in his…
By +972 Magazine April 1, 2015
African asylum seekers arrive at Israel’s Holot detention facility in the Negev desert, February 18, 2014. (Photo: Activestills.org) Israel’s High Court has twice struck down the law allowing the indefinite detention of asylum seekers.
Israel to indefinitely imprison asylum seekers who refuse deportation
In a move unprecedented in Western countries, Israel’s outgoing interior minister announces plan to compel asylum seekers to leave the country. Israel’s High Court has repeatedly struck down laws that authorized the indefinite detention of asylum seekers. Asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea will face deportation to third countries or face unlimited imprisonment in Israel…
By Mairav Zonszein March 31, 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)
An historic deal between Iran and the world
Iran’s relations with the West have seen their ups and downs, almost always ending in disappointment and frustration for the Iranians. Now, for the first time in modern history, negotiations are taking place in which world powers are addressing Iran at eye level. The pending deal is not perfect, but compared to the alternatives it…
By +972 Magazine March 31, 2015
Former Israeli diplomat Alon Liel (Screenshot: SocialTV)
WATCH: The case for recognizing Palestinian statehood in Europe
Former director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Alon Liel, discusses the growing number of European countries recognizing the State of Palestine, and a petition by thousands of Israelis calling on more states to do the same. Watch the full interview here.
By Social TV March 31, 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
  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. ‘NAZA’ is forcing Israelis to reflect. But we Palestinians are not your mirror