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 youth preform a Capoeira session in front of Al Aqsa mosque, November 22, 2014. Faiz Abu-Rmeleh/Activestills.org
The Year in Photos: Palestine-Israel in 2014
Images help shape the way we understand the world. A powerful image can resonate in the minds of millions and affect the public agenda, leading to increased awareness, activism and policy initiatives. This year we witnessed the worst attack on Gaza in decades, endless violence and hostility in Jerusalem, housing struggles inside Israel, ongoing home…
By Activestills December 31, 2014
File photo of Palestinian security forces in the West Bank. (Photo by Activestills.org)
‘Palestinian security forces held teen hostage for 3 days’
Now a Palestinian human rights NGO is demanding the PA hold the perpetrators accountable. Palestinian security forces in Ramallah kidnapped and held a teenager hostage for three days in order to compel his father to turn himself in, according to affidavits secured by human rights organization Al-Haq. The child was released when his father was…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man December 30, 2014
A relative of a child killed earlier in a playground in al-Shati refugee camp mourns at a cemetery, Gaza City, July 28, 2014. Reports indicated that 10 people, mostly children, were killed and 40 injured during the attack which took place on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid. (Photo by Anne Paq/Activestills.org)
+972’s Story of the Year: Gaza
Most of us have become so accustomed to Gaza’s suffering that we can hardly imagine a world without it. But imagine we must. During the fighting this summer, and in its aftermath, many believed the war would be a game-changer, that something would have to give — it hasn’t. Activists, intellectuals and diplomats continue to advocate, but…
By Samer Badawi December 30, 2014
Israeli soldiers unload supplies from a C-130 cargo aircraft. (Photo: IDF Spokesperson)
Israel must ratify the Arms Trade Treaty
Israel signed the treaty at the last possible moment before it came into effect, granting it rights but not requiring any concrete action. Now Israel needs to ratify to prove its commitment to the principle of denying arms to those who might use them for committing human rights violations or war crimes. By Yonatan Gher…
By +972 Magazine December 30, 2014
Palestinian citizens of Israel demonstrate against the Prawer-Begin Plan, BeerSheva, May 12, 2013 (Photo by Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)
+972’s Editor’s Picks of 2014
As 2014 comes to a close, +972 Magazine’s editors and bloggers took time to look back at the year that was, and share the articles that most resonated with them – in no particular order.   Israel’s watershed moment that wasn’t The Gaza war was perceived very differently in Israel and abroad, even among some of…
By +972 Magazine December 29, 2014
An Israeli soldier checks a Palestinian man’s documents at a checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Hebron on June 17, 2014, as the hunt for three Israeli teenagers believed kidnapped by militants entered its fifth day. (Photo: Tess Scheflan/Activestills.org)
Judge: Equality in the West Bank, just not for Palestinians
A Jerusalem judge acquits an Israeli man who broke through an West Bank checkpoint into Palestinian-controlled territory, ruling that it’s unacceptable for an Israeli citizen to be discriminated against by virtue of his religion. (Arab — but not Jewish — citizens of Israel are allowed to enter ‘Area A’.) But the ruling means nothing for…
By +972 Magazine December 29, 2014
A view from the top of the Seter HaMadrega outpost, just west of the Kfar Tapuach settlement in the West Bank. (photo: Yuval Ben-Ami)
The Beaten Path epilogue: Is this the place? (Part 13)
Nothing in the Holy Land is very imposing in and of itself. What visitors seek is a connection to holiness, to an ancient story or to one currently unfolding. The deconstructed tourist trail ends with a realization: Everything here is a trace. The final installment in Yuval Ben-Ami’s journey to Israel and Palestine’s most-trodden tourist…
By Yuval Ben-Ami December 29, 2014
Egyptian Alexandria Jewish girls during Bat Mitzvah. (photo: Nebi Daniel Association public photo collection / Maurice Studio CC BY 3.0)
What Egypt’s multicultural past teaches us about Israel’s present
Jacqueline Kahanoff’s novel, ‘Jacob’s Ladder,’ strips ‘multiculturalism’ of its cold, academic veneer, displaying instead the reality of a Jewish, multicultural lifestyle. But the novel also directs a powerful question toward Israeli society: can the Arabs that live among us today ever live in Israel the same way Jews lived in Egypt? By Ktsiaa Alon (translated from…
By Haokets December 29, 2014
Tower of David, Jerusalem. (photo: Maglanist)
The Davidization of Jerusalem: On the politics of symbols
It’s no coincidence that images of the Tower of David are popping up everywhere in the holy city: right-wing settlers and real estate moguls alike have been using the symbol to gain power. By Dana Hercbergs Like mushrooms after the rain, the Tower of David seems to be popping up in new places in Jerusalem. Its…
By +972 Magazine December 28, 2014
Three Israeli refuseniks. Their T-shirts read: "We See. We Hear. We Refuse,” Tel Aviv, October 16th, 2009. (Photo by Keren Manor/Activestills.org)
Jerusalem high school alumni to students: Refuse military draft
Dozens of Jerusalem’s Israel Arts and Sciences Academy alumni publish a letter calling on future graduates to refuse to serve the occupation. Orly Noy sat down to speak to one of the signatories about the legality of the letter, militarism in the educational system and the influence of former IASA student, Sayed Kashua.  Just three…
By Orly Noy December 28, 2014
Most Read
  1. ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
  2. Eisenkot is trying to outflank Netanyahu on the right. It’s a failed strategy
  3. 50 shades of right: An Israeli election primer
  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