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
Illustrative photo of boycott advocates. (Photo: Brian S / Shutterstock.com)
New academic boycott effort — still the wrong target
Over 1,000 American anthropologists have signed onto a boycott Israel petition. What this type of activism fails to do is to target the occupation in its essence – as an international system, sustained by an array of multinational interests. By Gil Hizi The American Anthropological Association (AAA) will hold its annual conference in Washington DC…
By +972 Magazine November 27, 2014
Sign warning of immigrants near the U.S.-Mexican Border. (Photo by Shutterstock.com)
Netanyahu’s xenophobia: Bad in America, bad in Israel
We know what he thinks of Arabs. Read what he thinks of Mexican-Americans. Of all the reasons Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu puts forth for why Israel needs a “Jewish nation-state” law, the most bizarre one is this: “There are those – including those who deny our national rights – who would like to establish autonomy…
By Larry Derfner November 27, 2014
Palestinians walk through the Shujayea neighborhood of Gaza City, nearly three months since a cease fire ended Operation Protective Edge, November 16, 2014. (Photo by Anne Paq/Activestills.org)
Gaza quiet shows Hamas’ pragmatism
Despite violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank, for the past three months Hamas has maintained calm on the Gaza border — curbing rocket-fire against Israel. By Aaron Magid Opponents of Hamas often accuse the Islamist organization of acting irrationally. In a National Review article titled, “Hamas’ Suicidal Tendencies,” the author writes, “[w]hy is Hamas…
By +972 Magazine November 26, 2014
Palestinian workers salvage building materials near Erez Crossing at Gaza’s northern border, Beit Hanoun, May 11, 2014. Human rights organizations have documented dozens of cases of Israeli army gunfire at persons who posed no threat and were well outside the 300-meter so-called “no-go zone” imposed by the Israeli military inside Gaza’s borders. In many cases, no warning was given before soldiers opened fire. (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)
Israeli forces kill Palestinian, first in Gaza since ceasefire
In the first such killing since the ceasefire that ended Israel’s offensive last summer, troops shoot and kill a Palestinian farmer near Gaza’s border. Israeli forces shot and killed Palestinian farmer Fadel Mohammed Halawa, 32, near Gaza’s border with Israel on Sunday. Relatives say he was searching for songbirds that fetch high prices in Gaza…
By Activestills November 26, 2014
Free speech silenced (Yossi Gurvitz)
Bill aims to strip citizenship, curb speech — a bellwether of Israel’s Right
A senior Likud MK is proposing to suspend much of Israeli democracy. His bill has zero chance of passing muster, but it does show where the Israeli Right thinks the future of the conflict lies.  MK Yariv Levin (Likud), chairman of the House Parliamentary Committee, is pushing a new directive — temporary legislation — to “combat…
By Dimi Reider November 26, 2014
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo: Haim Zach/GPO)
‘Nation-state law’ may end Arab grip on Jewish-Israeli society [satire]
Public and private sector Arab leaders in Israel fear the new basic law could threaten their long-standing economic, cultural and political dominance in the Jewish state. (Satire) The Jewish Nation-State law, a new bill that the Netanyahu government is pushing through the Knesset could bring about the end to their political domination over Jews in…
By Ami Kaufman November 26, 2014
Sudanese asylum seekers protest outside the European Union Embassy, November 25, 2014, Ramat Gan, Israel. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
PHOTOS: Sudanese refugees protest gender violence
Photos by Oren Ziv / Activestills.org Approximately 200 Sudanese asylum seekers marked International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Tuesday by demonstrating against the European Union’s lack of action regarding Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. The protest comes in the wake of the mass rape of hundreds of women and girls in Darfur…
By Activestills November 25, 2014
The Beaten Path: Framing the story at Yad Vashem (part 8)
Exploring Jerusalem’s Holocaust museum allows us to understand the way in which the Zionist narrative deals with the destruction of European Jewry. But is it the whole story? Part eight of Yuval Ben-Ami’s journey through the Holy Land’s most popular tourist sites. In the early years of the 11th Century, the Holy Land was taken over…
By Yuval Ben-Ami November 25, 2014
Israeli ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor (UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras
Israel’s UN ambassador puts another nail in the two-state coffin
‘Imagine the type of state [Palestinian] society would produce. Does the Middle East really need another terror-ocracy?’ Prosor said in a speech on Monday. In recent years Israeli government officials have learned that rejecting the rights of Palestinians should always go hand-in-hand with a verbal commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state. But the…
By Noam Sheizaf November 25, 2014
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a statement to the press, November 11, 2014. (Photo by Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO)
Is the ‘Jewish nation-state’ bill good for anyone at all?
A law seeking to prioritize and designate Israel as the Jewish nation-state is exposing the crazies in Israel’s government. This proposed basic law would codify and demarcate the state as something that belongs only to a subset of its citizens. The cabinet on Sunday passed a preliminary reading of a law — with the weight of a constitutional…
By Dahlia Scheindlin November 24, 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. 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