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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Yonatan Heilo. (Screenshot from Arik Weiss' story for Channel 10)
Seeking freedom for a rape victim who killed his attacker
Criminal sanctions for rape in Israel amount to a few years in prison at best. Yonatan Heilo – an Ethiopian immigrant and rape victim who lives outside the Israeli consensus – will now spend most of his adult life behind bars. He deserves our moral support despite the court’s blind eye. By Naama Katiee (translated from Hebrew by…
By Haokets November 30, 2014
A burned first-grade classroom at Jerusalem’s bilingual school after it was the target of an arson attack, November 30, 2014. (Photo by Activestills.org)
‘We will overcome’: Arson and mourning at Jerusalem’s bilingual school
The mixed Jewish-Arab school has been the target of racist attacks in the past, but for the parents, students and teachers of the ‘Hand in Hand’ school, this feels different. ‘This time, the fire was ignited inside our home.’ The timing couldn’t have been more “perfect”: while I was still at a demonstration against the…
By Orly Noy November 30, 2014
Graffiti sprayed on Jerusalem's bilingual school reads: "There is no coexistence with a cancer." (photo: Jerusalem Firefighters)
Jerusalem mixed school set on fire in apparent arson attack
The largest Arab-Jewish educational institution in Israel has been targeted several times in the past. Jerusalem’s bilingual Arab-Jewish school was set on fire Saturday night, and hate speech was sprayed on its walls with the messages: “Kahane was right” and “There is no coexistence with cancer.” One classroom was totally consumed while another was partially…
By Mairav Zonszein November 29, 2014
Israeli white taxis ply the noontime streets of downtown Jerusalem (photo: Yoninah/CC BY-SA 3.0)
Customer complains about Arab drivers, gets schooled by taxi app
At a time when Uber is getting  all the headlines for all the wrong reasons, it is heartening to see another taxi app – GetTaxi,  aka Gett – attracting a very different kind of press. As we reported here last week, businesses across the country are responding to the latest escalation by turning out their Palestinian employees. Last…
By Dimi Reider November 29, 2014
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman (Photo by Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)
Liberman’s de-patriation plan of illusions
Liberman’s proposal to cure Palestinian citizens of their ‘split personality’ violates pretty much everything democracy stands for. Headlines blazed in Friday’s Yedioth Ahronoth announcing the outlines of a peace proposal released by Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman. It’s not clear what prompted Liberman to release the plan at this moment – campaign considerations, a brief drop in attention…
By Dahlia Scheindlin November 29, 2014
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon survey a military exercise. (Photo by GPO/Kobi Gideon)
Israelis deserve more from their leaders
We deserve thought-out policies that can bring an end to the current cycle of violence and prevent the next. By Ilan Manor Henry Ford once said that thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. Over the past few days, some Israelis have felt that…
By +972 Magazine November 29, 2014
Residents of Al-Nafaq in high waters flooding the neighborhood, Gaza City, November 27, 2014. Basel Yazouri/Activestills.org
PHOTOS: Floods hit Gaza as war-hit infrastructure struggles
Hard hit during the summer’s war, civilian infrastructure is having a hard time coping with heavy rains. Photos and reporting: Basel Yazouri/Activestills.org The latest storm to hit the eastern Mediterranean region flooded large areas of Gaza City this week. The Al-Nafeq neighborhood, one of the lowest areas of Gaza City, suffered from severe flooding, exacerbated…
By Activestills November 28, 2014
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking in front of Israeli flags, July 20, 2014. (Photo by Haim Zach / GPO)
The ‘Jewish Nation-State Law’: Turning liberal Zionism on its head
Cementing the supremacy of national group rights over individual minority rights upends the precarious balance between Jewish and democratic, upon which liberal Zionism relies. For the ‘Nation-State Law’s authors and political patrons, however, this is just the beginning. Liberal Zionists of all stripes tend to have one thing in common: the belief — or at…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man November 28, 2014
Illustrative photo of an Israeli soldier aiming his weapon at Palestinian protesters. (Photo: Anne Paq/Activestills.org)
Israeli army shoots Italian activist, Palestinian teen with live ammo
The 30-year-old was reportedly wearing a reflective vest when shot. Kufr Qaddum has been holding weekly protests for years against the closure of its main access road. Israeli troops shot an Italian national in the chest with live ammunition Friday afternoon in the West Bank village of Kufr Qaddum, Palestinian medical officials and the International…
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man November 28, 2014
A Druze soldier in the IDF guards a mobile power station, May 13, 1949. (Photo by GPO/Zultan Kluger)
[WATCH] Druze refusal in the Israeli army: Land expropriation (part two)
According to the mainstream Israeli narrative the Druze population in Israel is loyal to and maintains an alliance with the state, the most famous element of which includes mandatory military service. But is that really the whole story? The second episode in this four-part series looks at how despite drafting Druze men into the army,…
By Social TV November 27, 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. Israel's election won't change the renewed reality of political apartheid
  4. 50 shades of right: An Israeli election primer
  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