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
A Palestinian child with a kite stands in front of the destroyed Al Nada towers in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. The towers had 90 flats.
The casualties of the next Gaza war
The awful experience of the past few years suggests that in about two years time will be ripe for yet another war with predictable outcomes: thousands of dead, each and every one of them a person who meant the world to their families and loved ones. By Hagai El-Ad One month after the end of the…
By +972 Magazine February 16, 2015
Jewish ultra-Orthodox women pray on a balcony in Jerusalem. (photo: Tali Mayer/Activestills.org)
Excluded from politics, Orthodox women fight back
The next Knesset is expected to have a record number of women, but even that number — 31 out of 120 — isn’t all that impressive. ‘Either we do something now and fight for representation, or we will be silenced for generations to come,’ founder of ultra-Orthodox women’s party says. By Angela Gruber If recent polls…
By +972 Magazine February 15, 2015
A youth runs to the water with his surfboard, Gaza beach, February 12, 2015. Anne Paq / Activestills.org
PHOTOS: War-ravaged Gaza faces winter storm
By: Anne Paq & Basel Yazouri / Activestills.org Six months have passed since the last Israeli offensive left the Gaza Strip in a dire humanitarian crisis. The difficult storms of the past few months have affected those who were left homeless by Israeli air strikes,  specifically the thousands of internally displaced Palestinians who have been staying in shelters…
By Activestills February 15, 2015
The Israel-Palestine Lorde diaries, chapter 10: Law of desire
The story takes a southern turn, as Yuval heads into the desert for a possible rendezvous with an elusive star, and has disturbing thoughts on the way. Click here to read the previous chapters of the ‘Israel-Palestine Lorde Diaries’ And so I was left with no choice. I had to travel to a freezing desert plateau, where…
By Yuval Ben-Ami February 15, 2015
Screenshot from the latest Likud campaign video.
Netanyahu campaign video: A victory for the Left means an ISIS invasion
In the latest Likud campaign video, released online Saturday, the message is that voters who cast their ballots for parties to the left of Netanyahu are throwing open Israel’s borders to an invasion by the so-called Islamic State, which in Israel and much of the Arabic-speaking world is called Da’esh.     The video opens…
By Lisa Goldman February 14, 2015
Screenshot from the Samaria Settler's Council video. (YouTube)
WATCH: The most anti-Semitic Israeli cartoon ever made?
[This post has been updated] The Samaria Settler Council — an organization representing Israeli settlements in northern West Bank — has just uploaded a pretty jaw-dropping piece of propaganda. It’s subtitled in English and really needs to be seen to be believed. But in case you don’t want to do it to yourselves, it shows a wealthy…
By Dimi Reider February 14, 2015
Protesters march on Tel Aviv's Ayalon highway on July 15, 2012. (photo: Activestills.org)
What Mizrahi activists really want: A ten-point program
Mizrahi activists have tried explaining their positions for years. Now, in the run-up to the elections, they lay out their political vision for education, land reform, health care and representation in a ‘ten-point program.’ By Roi Grufi Throughout my years of being active in the Mizrahi struggle in Israel, I found that there are several…
By Haokets February 14, 2015
Hundreds hold a funeral for Sami Ja'ar in the streets of Rahat. Ja'ar was shot by police officers last week during an operation in the city. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
WATCH: Following killings, will Bedouin boycott the elections?
Following the recent killing of two Bedouin men in the southern city of Rahat at the hands of Israeli police — along with years of discrimination in nearly every realm, dispossession and home demolitions — the younger generation of Bedouin are more reluctant to vote in the upcoming elections. Jews and Bedouin met in the Negev town…
By Social TV February 14, 2015
+972 Magazin
‘Israel Hayom,’ where democracy is for Jews alone
The pro-Netanyahu newspaper launched a new online questionnaire to help readers decide which party represents them. Jewish readers, that is. By Oren Persico / ‘The 7th Eye’ Israel Hayom, the most widely-distributed newspaper in the country, continues to exclude Arab citizens from its coverage of the upcoming elections. A new web-based initiative that gives the…
By The Seventh Eye February 14, 2015
Malak al-Khatib is released from prison after 44 days, Jabara checkpoint, near Tulkarem, West Bank, February 13, 2015. (photo: Ahmad al-Bazz)
PHOTOS: 14-year-old Palestinian girl released from prison after 44 days
Photos: Ahmad al-Bazz Text: Yael Marom After 44 days in an Israeli prison, 14-year-old Malak al-Khatib has returned to her family. Family members waited for al-Khatib Friday morning at the Jabara checkpoint in Tulkarem. Al-Khatib, a 9th grader from the village Beitin near Ramallah, was arrested on December 31, 2014 near her school. Soldiers who…
By Activestills February 13, 2015
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  2. 50 shades of right: An Israeli election primer
  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
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  5. ‘NAZA’ is forcing Israelis to reflect. But we Palestinians are not your mirror