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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People holding Charlie Hebdo cover with Mohammed cartoon during a unity rally (Marche Republicaine), in which 50000 people paid tribute following the three-day killing spree in Paris, January 11, 2015. (Photo by Shutterstock.com/Hadrian)
On being murdered because some people can’t take a joke
If anything, satire in our society runs the risk of being too safe, of making its targets appear less dangerous than they really are. In cutting them down to size, satire sometimes humanizes as much as it disparages. By Don Futterman This week 17 French citizens were murdered because some people literally can’t take a…
By +972 Magazine January 13, 2015
The Ofer military prison in the snow, December 15, 2013. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
It’s always 9:15 in the West Bank military court
As Palestinians wait for their day in military court, time stretches and blends like a cruel psychological experiment. People walk in circles to stay warm. The broken clock on the wall shows 9:15. The only ones who know what time it is are the soldiers. By Alma Biblash Sunday, Ofer Military Court, the West Bank: Around…
By +972 Magazine January 12, 2015
The Israel-Palestine Lorde Diaries, Chapter 2: Casino San Remo
Yuval Ben-Ami and his gang are going where no man or woman has gone before: They are trying to produce a bilingual, bi-national album based on the songs of pop prodigy Lorde. The only problem: The gang itself is homogenous to the core. An insurmountable challenge?   For the entire Israel-Palestine Lorde Diaries, click here. A…
By Yuval Ben-Ami January 12, 2015
Yoav Hattab
Paris victim Yoav Hattab died a Tunisian patriot
Young Tunisians on social media extol a video of Rabbi Hattab comparing the tolerant atmosphere between Jews and Muslims in Tunisia to the hostile one in France, where his son was murdered by terrorists last week. There is, of course, some romanticizing going on. “Tunisia is bereaved!” read the main headline on the front page…
By Lisa Goldman January 12, 2015
An activist with “Mothers Against Holot” holds a sign reading quoting from the biblical passage, “And you shall love [the strangers] as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt,” January 10, 2015, Tel Aviv. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Provide asylum seekers with heaters, rights groups demand in court
Following media reports and the intervention of two members of Knesset, the Israel Prison Service provided African asylum seekers with heating pads, which one asylum seeker says are inadequate. As temperatures drop below zero, Tel Aviv residents protest conditions at the Holot detention facility. By Yael Marom Two Israeli refugee rights organizations petitioned the High…
By +972 Magazine January 11, 2015
Protesters hold vigil for the slain journalists of Charlie Hebdo, Strasbourg, France, January 7, 2015. (photo: Claude TRUONG-NGOC CC BY-SA 3.0)
France must not push Muslims into the arms of extremists
The terrorists who attacked Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket were well-trained, spoke French and knew their actions would play into the hands of France’s Islamophobic right. Let’s not give them what they’re after. By Yossi Dahan As Israel’s news outlets covered the terrorist attacks in Paris, we watched how our analysts and correspondence suddenly…
By Haokets January 11, 2015
Israeli soldiers and Palestinian villagers inspect damage to olive trees in the south Hebron hills, January 9, 2015. (Photo by Lanser Nawajeh/B'Tselem)
Dozens of olive trees felled in suspected settler violence
 Two incidents in the West Bank leave upwards of 60 olive trees severely damaged, according to human rights organizations. Dozens of Palestinian-owned mature olive trees were felled in a suspected settler attack Saturday night in the West Bank, according to two Israeli human rights organizations. Villagers discovered the vandalized trees on lands belonging to the…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man January 11, 2015
Benjamin Netanyahu. (photo: Activestills.org)
The real reason Bibi wants French Jews to move to Israel
By calling on France’s Jews to move to Israel, Netanyahu is promoting a worldview in which there is no national conflict, no occupation and no Palestinian people. There are only Jews and radical Muslims.  The terror attacks in France have caused Netanyahu to, once again, conflate his role as prime minister with his imaginary role as supreme…
By Orly Noy January 11, 2015
Stock photo of French marines patrolling in Paris. (Photo by Kavalenkau / Shutterstock.com)
France needs no one’s advice on fighting Islamist terror
A look at the facts. In Israel and America, France has this reputation of being the ultimate effete, left-liberal country – so politically correct, so multiculti, so morally relativist and scared to death of offending any minority, especially Muslims, that it’s incapable of dealing with the threat of jihadist terror. Israelis and Americans (led of…
By Larry Derfner January 11, 2015
License to Kill: Shot to death while in custody
The first part in a series of articles examining case files of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers — the ensuing investigations, by other Israeli soldiers, indicate a lack of interest in discovering the truth or achieving justice. In part one, a Palestinian man is arrested for not carrying an ID card. A few hours later, while…
By +972 Magazine January 10, 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
  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. Why ‘NAZA’ terrifies Israel's liberal elite
  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