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
Participants in the Open Hillel Conference, Harvard University. (photo: Gili Getz)
How Israel stupefies so many brilliant Jews
It’s the occupation, professor. Deja vu from the Technion. On the eve of Passover 1988, I was working at the Technion, Israel’s prestigious technological institute in Haifa, writing fundraising prose. It was a few months into the First Intifada, and Israel’s image had been taking a battering overseas like never before, with scenes being televised continually…
By Larry Derfner December 24, 2014
Untreated sewage flows in the West Bank (Social TV)
Take a (virtual) ecological tour of the occupied West Bank
From the separation barrier’s effects on animal migration and plant-life to insufficient sewage infrastructure to the discriminatory use of nature reserves, the occupation’s impact goes far beyond the personal and political — it’s also an environmental hazard. Social TV takes you on an ecological tour of the occupied West Bank. Related: Israelis, Palestinians must cooperate…
By Social TV December 23, 2014
Russian President Vladimir Putin appears on state-owned television station Russia Today. (Photo by The Kremlin)
Why I quit ‘Russia Today,’ and why it remains necessary
Working for Russia’s state-owned media was supposed to be an opportunity to tell the ‘other side’ of the story. But it turns out that the U.S. and Russia — along with their mainstream media ecosystems — are equally horrendous. The inside story of nepotism, click-bait and propaganda at Ruptly. By Paula Schmitt The first thing I…
By +972 Magazine December 23, 2014
Uriel Ferera, 19-year-old orthodox Jew from Beer Sheva, enters Tel Ha'Shomer Military Base, where he will announce his refusal to draft to Israeli army service, April 27, 2014. Uriel says he refuses to take part in the occupation and that his request for civil service instead of a military one was rejected by the army.
Freed Israeli conscientious objector: They tried to break me
Uriel Ferera says he doesn’t feel like he lost the 177 days that he spent in military prison. ‘The opposite. I fought for my principles — to not lend a hand to the occupation.’ By Daniel Beller After 177 days in Israeli military prison and 10 trials, ideological conscientious objector Uriel Ferera is a free man. When…
By +972 Magazine December 23, 2014
Palestinian laborers arrive at the first of eight metal carousels they must pass through in the Sha’ar Ephraim checkpoint separating the West Bank and Israel, December 22, 2014. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
At West Bank checkpoint, a fleeting victory for Palestinian laborers
Thousands of Palestinian laborers refused to pass through a West Bank checkpoint in protest of overcrowding and bad treatment from Israeli guards. A day later, their demands were met at the privatized checkpoint, but many believe the improvements won’t last long. The Palestinian laborers passing through the “Sha’ar Ephraim” checkpoint in the early morning are…
By Haggai Matar December 22, 2014
Israel's Supreme Court sits as the High Court of Justice, April 1, 2014. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills)
Judges aren’t cogs in the occupation, they’re the oil keeping it going
A new report maps out the two separate legal systems in the occupied territories — one for Jews and one for Arabs. At a launch event for the report, senior jurists showed up and argued it’s not their fault whatsoever. Former Supreme Court Justice Dalia Dorner asked: What can we do? The answer: A lot.…
By Haggai Matar December 22, 2014
Israeli border police check the ID of a Palestinian man (File photo by Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)
Resource: Two legal systems — discrimination under military occupation
One of the most prominent and disturbing characteristics of Israeli military rule in the West Bank is the creation and development of an official and institutionalized legal regime of two separate legal systems, on an ethnic-national basis. The long-standing residence of citizens of the State of Israel, the occupying power, in settlements at the heart…
By +972 Resources December 22, 2014
File photo of settlers threatening Israeli activists and Palestinians with sticks in front of the Ma´on settlement, South Hebron hills. (Photo by: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Settlers sentenced to an unprecedented 30 months over ‘price tag’ attack
Court sentences two West Bank settlers for setting fire to Palestinian-owned vehicles, but not before the investigatory process violated their civil rights. Two extremist settlers were sentenced to 30 months in prison on Sunday, in what is the first such conviction for a “price tag” attack against Palestinian civilians. Yehuda Landsberg and Yehuda Savir, both…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man December 21, 2014
Gabbot/FlickrCC
Scarlett Johansson, West Bank workers need a Christmas miracle! [satire]
In the wake of SodaStream’s apparent capitulation to BDS, an open appeal to ScarJo to save yet another group of West Bank workers. (Satire) Text by Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org Dear ScarJo, Can I call you ScarJo? It’s been a great year for you: you had a baby, you got married, you turned 30. But I…
By +972 Magazine December 21, 2014
The aftermath of a home demolition in Lod, Israel, September 2, 2011. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Palestinian family in Lydd faces home demolition
The Naqib family has been living on their land since before 1948. That, however, didn’t stop the municipality from serving them with an arbitrary demolition order.  After a relative period of calm in which the local authorities have refrained from demolishing homes of Palestinian citizens of Israel, the Lydd (“Lod” in Hebrew, “Lydda” in English) Municipality…
By Rami Younis December 21, 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