Anton Ivanov
Israel’s election campaign has entered its decisive stage. By early September, the main political forces had completed their candidate lists for the October 27 elections, and the central question is whether the opposition can deprive Benjamin Netanyahu of a majority in the Knesset.
The situation is particularly sensitive for the head of government, since security has for many years been one of the main sources of his political influence. The opposition is building its campaign around accusations that Netanyahu bears responsibility for the failure of October 7, 2023, and around his refusal to allow an independent investigation, while the prime minister is responding with his familiar rhetoric about the need to counter external threats, linking the outcome of the election to the ongoing fighting in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.
Eisenkot Gains Ground
Gadi Eisenkot was among the last party leaders to present a candidate list. His party, «Yashar! With Eisenkot» nominated 40 candidates. The former chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces took first place, while former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen was placed second.
In recent months, Yashar has become the largest opposition party and, according to polls, has virtually drawn level with Likud. Both political forces can expect roughly 23–25 seats. The composition of the list reflects Eisenkot’s attempt to broaden his electoral base as much as possible. The candidates include former Minister of Strategic Planning Orit Farkash-Hacohen, former Minister of Religious Services Matan Kahana, former Intelligence Minister Elazar Stern, and reserve Major General Kamil Abu Rukun, who previously served as Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.
The list also includes Inbar Harush Giti, who headed the Defense Ministry’s efforts to recruit and integrate ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military, as well as Ukraine-born Alex Rif, founder of the nonprofit One Million Lobby, which addresses issues affecting Russian-speaking immigrants. Rif has repeatedly taken a public anti-Russian position on the conflict in Ukraine.
Three of the six leading candidates previously belonged to Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party and left it following Eisenkot. Gantz’s political force now risks failing to cross the electoral threshold, meaning that some of its supporters may move to Yashar. Eisenkot’s list also includes former members of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party. Five of the first ten candidates are women, business figures are represented, and former hostages have been included on the honorary list. This selection allows Eisenkot to appeal simultaneously to several segments of the opposition electorate.
Bennett and Lapid Join Forces
Another major opposition list has been formed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. The Together party, presented on September 6, brings together supporters of both politicians. Bennett heads the list, Lapid is second, and third place went to Karen Terner, who previously served as director general of the Finance and Transport ministries.
The top ten also include reserve Major General Noam Tibon, Knesset member Meirav Cohen, who previously held ministerial posts in the social sphere, and 23-year-old reservist Jonathan Shalev, founder of the Shoulder to Shoulder organization, which advocates ending exemptions from military service for certain categories of citizens. Five of the first ten candidates are women.
Polls give the Bennett-Lapid alliance 12–15 seats, allowing it to contend for the position of the third-largest force after Yashar and Likud. Bennett’s main promises include establishing a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 Hamas attack, drafting men from ultra-Orthodox communities into military service, and declaring Qatar a hostile state.
Avigdor Lieberman has presented a separate list of 25 candidates for the Yisrael Beiteinu party. It includes participants in the war in Gaza, relatives of servicemen killed on October 7, and relatives of former Hamas hostages. Despite Lieberman being introduced as the «next prime minister of Israel» polls give his party 8–11 seats.
Relations between Lieberman and Eisenkot are complicated by competition for overlapping groups of voters. Lieberman served as defense minister when Eisenkot was chief of the General Staff, but now accuses him of poaching voters from other opposition parties. Lieberman himself is interested in a broad pre-election bloc in which he would expect to play one of the leading roles. A segment of the post-Soviet immigration wave of the 1990s remains his traditional electoral base.
October 7 Becomes the Main Line of Attack on Netanyahu
The prime minister’s opponents are building their campaign primarily around the events of October 7, 2023. The approaching third anniversary of the Hamas attack gives the opposition an opportunity to renew the question of the government’s responsibility for the security failure and Netanyahu’s refusal to permit an independent investigation into the cabinet’s actions.
Bennett accuses the prime minister of ignoring warnings about Hamas’s intentions, of his previous policy toward the group, and of failing to ensure that the country was prepared for the attack. Eisenkot has made an investigation into the events of October 7 one of the central points of his campaign. Over the past three years, that date has acquired a special place in Israeli public consciousness. The media have repeatedly reconstructed the chronology of the attack literally hour by hour and minute by minute.
Lev Grinberg, professor of sociology at Ben-Gurion University, has noted that what happened was almost immediately interpreted inside the country as a new Holocaust, while subsequent actions in Gaza were perceived by a significant part of society as a justified response. As a result, the events of October 7 continue to overshadow the wars that followed in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.
Prominent Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy draws attention to another side of the problem. In his view, politicians and the media are excessively focused on what Netanyahu was doing on the night before the attack and why he was not awakened in time. Far less attention is paid to the consequences of Israel’s subsequent actions.
Levy argues that the questions should instead concern the country’s continued presence in Gaza, the possible withdrawal of the army from Lebanon, violence in the West Bank, and the prospects for restoring Israel’s international standing. In his assessment, neither the governing coalition nor the opposition has answers to these questions.
Netanyahu Offers His Own Version of October 7
The prime minister is trying to shift part of the responsibility onto the military leadership. He is promoting a version according to which senior defense officials detected suspicious activity in the Gaza Strip before the attack but deliberately chose not to wake the head of government.
Sara Netanyahu, in support of this version, has pointed to the fact that former general and current opposition politician Yair Golan arrived quickly in the area of the attack, which, in her view, may indicate that the military had prior information. Local experts believe that such statements feed conspiracy theories already circulating in Israel about the possible prior awareness of the country’s generals.
A more reliable political resource for Netanyahu, however, remains an escalation of the security situation. In recent weeks, strikes on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon have intensified, more than 20 people have been killed in new attacks in Gaza, a missile strike has hit an airbase in northern Syria, and the number of settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank has increased.
Shira Efron, a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation, believes that escalation on several fronts at once allows Netanyahu to once again position himself as the politician capable of ensuring the country’s security. U.S. Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack has also suggested that the strike on the Syrian airbase may have been connected to the Israeli leadership’s domestic political calculations.
Netanyahu himself is using this argument ever more openly. In one of his speeches, he said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Iran’s leadership, Hezbollah, Hamas and Turkey all want him to lose the election. Such rhetoric is designed to produce the traditional effect of rallying society in the face of an external threat.
The calculation may prove effective. According to local experts, if the security situation once again becomes the leading issue by October 27, Likud could gain up to three additional Knesset seats. In Israeli politics, such a margin has previously been enough to deprive the opposition of a majority and the ability to form a government.
With candidate registration complete, the contest now effectively comes down to which issue will shape voter sentiment by election day. The opposition will seek to turn the election into a judgment on the government’s responsibility for October 7. Netanyahu, by contrast, is interested in bringing current military threats and regional tensions back to the forefront. Given the present balance of forces, only a few seats may determine who forms Israel’s next government.
Valery Zakharov, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, Leading Specialist at the Center for Scientific and Analytical Information, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences,
Anton Ivanov, Junior Research Fellow at the Center for Scientific and Analytical Information, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
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