‘The Israeli elections are a referendum on Israel’s future character’
Current affairs image: ANP
The Israeli general elections are almost upon us. What are the key issues and how can we understand the campaign from an Israeli perspective? Researcher Noa Schonmann gives us an inside look.
From her window, Noa Schonmann (Leiden researcher in modern Middle East Studies and Israeli-Arab relations) has a view of the port city of Haifa. Tall towers are bathing in a bright blue sky. It is a deceptively serene scene, as Israel heads towards one of its most crucial elections. Beneath the surface, tensions simmer across a deeply divided society.
At stake are seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, and the political survival of its leader. Will Benjamin Netanyahu hold on to power or will the longest-serving prime minister in the country’s history have to clear the way for a successor?
Schonmann, herself Israeli, is there to cast her vote on Tuesday 27 October. We talk to her about the elections from the perspective of Israeli voters.
Hi Noa, can you give a bit of background to these elections?
‘These are the first general elections since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack. This is also the first Knesset since 1988 to complete a full four-year term. That shows how much was at stake for the coalition members: Netanyahu held on to this coalition for dear life. He and his partners knew full well that in an election, the central question would be their responsibility for the failures that led to October 7 and for their handling of the aftermath.
The Hamas attack was Israel’s worst security failure since the surprise attack that launched the 1973 Yom Kippur War. It was also the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust and it occurred on Netanyahu’s watch. It marked the beginning of a deep national crisis. The ensuing war devastated Gaza and produced a humanitarian catastrophe (with over 71,000 Palestinian casualties), but it did not produce the “total victory” over Hamas that Netanyahu promised, and multiple regional fronts are still open.
Netanyahu is the only senior figure who neither resigned nor accepted direct responsibility, while resisting calls for an independent state commission of inquiry into the failures that enabled the attack.’
‘Overall, this election seems to turn less on what voters are for than on what they are against.’
What is at stake for the Israeli people?
‘Many people feel that this election is about the future character of the state of Israel. Directly at stake is Netanyahu's own political fate, which is entangled with the criminal cases against him. More broadly, the vote is also a referendum on the judicial overhaul pursued by his right-wing coalition – reforms which critics warn could erode democratic institutions and push Israel toward the kind of illiberal, autocratic governance associated with Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.
Another key issue in the election is the conscription of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews into the military – the so-called unequal-burden question. Haredim make up roughly 14 per cent of Israel’s population, and their service exemptions have long been preserved through coalition politics. With many Haredi men also remaining outside the labour force, secular Israelis increasingly resent carrying a disproportionate share of the military and economic burden. Still, some voters may subordinate this issue to their preference for a governing coalition that rests on Jewish parties, rather than one that depends on Arab parties.
Overall, this election seems to turn less on what voters are for than on what they are against: are they more opposed to Netanyahu’s continued leadership and judicial reform, to the Haredi draft exemption or to a governing coalition that depends on Arab parties? Either way, the fate of the Palestinian population and the prospect of a Palestinian state are strikingly absent from the ballot. Haaretz newspaper has called it a “deafening silence”.’
Are there regions in Israel that lean toward, say, a centre-right or far-right coalition?
‘The Israeli electorate is not primarily divided by geography, though regional patterns exist. It is shaped more by a combination of socioeconomic position, religiosity, ethnicity and national identity: whether one lives in the centre or the periphery and can cope with the rising cost of living, whether one is Jewish or Arab, secular or religious.
Beneath these divisions lies a broader anxiety about Israel’s direction: whether the state can be both Jewish and democratic, whether the burden of security and public resources can be shared more equitably, and what kind of society Israel will be in 20 years if current trends continue.’
Could a change in government cause a change in Israeli security and foreign policies?
‘That’s looking at the elections from the Dutch or European perspective. Most of the external talk is about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, its regional geopolitical stance and its relations with the United States. These issues are not discussed domestically in the same way. They are considered entirely secondary to the question of security, and Israel's security paradigm is not contested in these elections. The idea that Israel has a right to forcefully defend itself as a Zionist Jewish state is a matter of broad consensus.
A new coalition could alter Israel’s diplomatic tone, take harsher measures against settler violence and restore ties with allies. But every coalition I can foresee emerging from this election would be led by someone at least as hawkish as Netanyahu.’
Noa Schonmann is a historian working at Leiden University’s Faculty of Humanities. Her research focuses on conflict and regional order in the Middle East, and the history of Israeli foreign policy.