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
File photo of a Palestinian woman voting in Bethlehem. (Photo by Activestills.org)
Who says Palestinians don’t have a vote in Israeli elections?
By warning that a Palestinian UN resolution might strengthen Netanyahu, Kerry is actually suggesting that Palestinians can influence Israeli elections — just not in the direction Washington was hoping for. The United States is trying to scuttle UN Security Council resolutions seeking an end to the occupation under the pretense that it could strengthen right-wing…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man December 20, 2014
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo by Activestills.org)
How long must Palestinians pay for the Holocaust? [op-ed]
A man leading an occupying state, a racist state in which mixed marriages are protested, doesn’t get to teach lessons to others. Mr. Netanyahu, stop exploiting the Holocaust at every political opportunity; pick up a book and learn that we weren’t there in those darkest days of European and Jewish history. On the eve of…
By Samah Salaime December 20, 2014
With your support, we can do so much more in 2015
2014 was a bad year in Israel/Palestine. Immediately after the collapse of peace talks came the kidnapping and murder of four teens – three Israelis and a Palestinian – followed by months of violence. Israel launched the third war on Gaza in six years, which took the lives of more than 2,000 people, the majority…
By +972 Magazine December 20, 2014
Israeli border policemen arrest Palestinian activist Muhammad Khatib during a demonstration commemorating the death of Palestinian minister, Ziad Abu Ein, in the West Bank village of Turmus Aya, north of Ramallah, December 19, 2014. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
PHOTOS: Army fires tear gas, rubber bullets at commemoration march for PA minister
Photos and by Yotam Ronen, Oren Ziv / Activestills.org Hundreds of demonstrators arrived Friday at the West Bank village of Turmus Aya to mark one week since the death of Palestinian Authority Minister Ziad Abu Ein. The protest took place not far from the Adei Ad outpost, where Abu Ein was attacked last week by…
By Activestills December 19, 2014
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice. (UN Photo/JC McIlwaine)
The hand that holds the status quo together
The Palestinians put forward a Security Council resolution calling for the end of the occupation by 2017. The Obama administration, which has supported essentially every Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, has promised to use its veto power. The Kingdom of Jordan on Wednesday submitted a resolution draft to the United Nation Security Council, which calls for the…
By Noam Sheizaf December 19, 2014
Mubarak Awad. (photo courtesy of Meir Amor)
The Palestinian who won’t give up on the power of nonviolence
At the end of 2000, as the Second Intifada was beginning to spread throughout the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli Professor Meir Amor sat down to speak with Dr. Mubarak Awad, a Palestinian expert on nonviolent resistance. Fifteen years later, the two met once again to talk about nonviolence, growing religious fundamentalism, gender equality, Palestinian…
By Haokets December 19, 2014
A Palestinian woman carries a key, a symbol of the Nakba and the right of return, May 15, 2012, Ramallah. (Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)
For Israeli media, even the memory of the Nakba poses a threat
A new study reveals that although Israeli newspapers present an array of views on the Nakba, the most common one sees it as nothing less than a threat that seeks to delegitimize Israel. By Oren Persico / ‘The 7th Eye‘ A new study reveals that Israel’s mainstream media maintains the state’s official stance toward the Nakba, and…
By The Seventh Eye December 18, 2014
An Israeli Wedding (illustration, the people in this photo are not related to the content of the article. photo by: Yosef Silver/flickr)
Israel’s marriage police: An aberration from Jewish tradition
From interrogations to blacklists to computerized databases, Israel’s rabbinical authorities have adopted a coercive system of oversight that punishes violators of Jewish law’s bans on ‘certain’ kinds of relationships. By Akiva Miller Everyone knows that Israel’s Jewish-Orthodox-controlled marriage system must change. But while activists, lawyers and politicians struggling to reform it have won some important…
By +972 Magazine December 18, 2014
The Beaten Path: Jericho, city of flexible time (part 11)
On we go, deconstructing the tourist trail, except this time it melts in our hands, much like Salvador Dali’s clocks. Welcome to Jericho, oldest city on earth, established right this moment. Part 11 of Yuval Ben-Ami’s latest journey. When I visit Jericho with groups, the visit is typically brief. This sweet, ultra-historical desert town is…
By Yuval Ben-Ami December 17, 2014
A Christian Zionist attends a "Stand with Israel" rally in Boston, August 7, 2014. (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)
Zionist Christians’ war on the true meaning of Christmas
The rhetoric of Christian Zionists consistently places loyalty to the modern state of Israel above the example and teachings of the Jesus born in Bethlehem whose birth Christmas celebrates. It’s time to stop calling such groups Christian Zionists and instead use the term Zionist Christians, to more accurately reflect their priorities. Photos and text by: Ryan…
By Activestills December 17, 2014
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  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