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 scouts march and play music during a ceremony commemorating the birth of Prophet Mohammed, a holiday known in Arabic as Mawlid al-Nabawi, next to the Dome of the Rock in Al Aqsa compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, January 3, 2015. (photo: Activestills.org)
A Month in Photos: Police violence, elections and the holy selfie
Editors’ picks of the top photos from Palestine, Israel and beyond for the month of January. This month, terror attacks in France and Tel Aviv, Bedouin citizens of Israel protest against police violence, Israel’s election campaign gets into full swing, Hezbollah attacks the Israeli army on the Lebanese border and snow falls on the West…
By Activestills January 30, 2015
Construction of illegal settlement units at 'Elkana,' on the lands of the West Bank village of Masha, near Salfit, July 06, 2013. (Photo: Ahmad Al-Bazz/Activestills.org)
The Israeli government’s election gift to West Bank settlers
Netanyahu tells supporters at a settlement campaign event that Israel will continue to build in the West Bank, as his Likud party competes with more hawkish parties for settler votes. Erekat calls for boycott, divestment in response. Less than a month and a half before general elections, the Israeli government published tenders for 430 new…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man January 30, 2015
IAF fighter jet during an exercise. (photo: IDF Spokesperson)
Why Israel picks fights with Hezbollah
And why it will probably pick another one before too long. After Hezbollah’s fatal attack on Israeli soldiers Wednesday, the two enemy sides are in a rare configuration: they’re even. Israel killed six Hezbollah guerrillas and an Iranian general on January 18, so Hezbollah killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven more, and now they’re…
By Larry Derfner January 30, 2015
Ksneia Svetlova (Photo by Yasmin Yaira)
Don’t call her the ‘Russian candidate’: Meet Ksenia Svetlova
An interview with the latest addition to Tzipi Livni’s ‘Zionist Camp,’ on the heavy price Israel will pay if it can’t solve the Palestinian conflict, how much Russian and Mizrahi immigrants have in common, and whether the Labor/Livni list will consider forming a new government with Netanyahu. In the Israeli electoral system, party heads often…
By Orly Noy January 29, 2015
The Israel-Palestine Lorde Diaries, chapter 5: The future
The team gets the hottest recruit this side of the separation barrier. Read the previous chapters of The Israel-Palestine Lorde Diaries here. “He who wishes to fly must first learn to walk,” said Nietzsche, and I say: before teaming up with Palestinians, an Israeli Lorde fan must find Israeli partners. Yaron surprised me with snobbery,…
By Yuval Ben-Ami January 29, 2015
American citizen Tariq Abu Khdeir, 15, after being beaten by Israeli police. (Photos provided to Addameer by the Abu Khdeir family.)
American teen beaten by Israeli police is cleared of wrongdoing
The cousin of Muhammad Abu Khdeir’s videotaped beating by Israeli police in Jerusalem led to widespread outrage. He had been arrested and accused of participating in riots. Palestinian-American 15-year-old Tariq Abu Khdeir, whose severe beating by Israeli police while he was in custody last summer was caught on video, has been cleared of all wrongdoing…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man January 28, 2015
Hatem Abu Ziadeh (Photo courtesy of WAC-MAAN)
How to stop Palestinians unionizing: Security, security, security
When Palestinian workers at the Tzarfati garage in the West Bank settlement of Mishor Adumim unionized, management made up criminal accusations against the Palestinian chairman of the workers’ committee, exploiting the hostile war-time environment at the time. Management brought in the army, the police, and sent him to military court — resulting in the revocation…
By +972 Magazine January 28, 2015
File photo of Israeli soldiers patrolling the northern border. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Israeli soldiers killed in Hezbollah retaliation attack
Two Israeli soldiers are killed in a cross-border attack on an Israeli patrol road with anti-tank missiles. A Spanish soldier serving with UNIFIL is reportedly killed by Israeli retaliatory shelling. Israeli politicians call for harsh response. Israel killed a Hezbollah commander a week earlier. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in a cross-border attack on the…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man January 28, 2015
Relatives walk amidst the rubble of the home of Zaki Wahdan in the city of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza City, November 10, 2014. Eight members of the Wahdan family, mostly women and children were killed. (Photo by Anne Paq/Activestills.org)
Bombing homes in Gaza: ‘It was supposed to be their shelter’
Human rights group B’Tselem exposes — and protests to the Israeli government — home demolitions, Gaza style. They fled when the flyers fell from the sky, Israeli military orders dropped like confetti on the masses. Evacuate, they said, or else. Seek shelter now. One week of sorties, and Ibrahim made the call: We leave now…
By Samer Badawi January 28, 2015
David Landau (Photo: Ami Kaufman)
Farewell to David Landau, who would have hated this headline
September 11, 2001. I get off the bus from northern Tel Aviv that takes me to 21 Shocken St., where the Haaretz building is located. As I enter the doors I’m greeted by a colleague from the Hebrew news desk, who says “Wow, you’re going to have quite a shift.” I was night editor of…
By Ami Kaufman January 28, 2015
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  2. 50 shades of right: An Israeli election primer
  3. Eisenkot is trying to outflank Netanyahu on the right. It’s a failed strategy
  4. Israel's election won't change the renewed reality of political apartheid
  5. Jewish Israelis must do more than stand together with Palestinians
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