Electoral One-Upmanship

Three political poles currently dominate Israel’s day-to-day political life in the run-up to the elections for the twenty-sixth Knesset, scheduled for October 27.

The first is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, allied with the most extreme currents of religious Zionism. Facing him is Naftali Bennett of the nationalist right, in alliance with centrist Yair Lapid. The third, emerging from the military establishment, is former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, who may prove to be Netanyahu’s most dangerous rival.

Opinion polls shift constantly. Yet one fact has remained unchanged so far: none of the three poles appears capable of achieving the breakthrough needed to form the next government.

What their electoral platforms share most strikingly is an absence: no issue genuinely connected to the rights of the Palestinian people or their future in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip occupies any meaningful place, while the role of Arab parties in Israel is ignored.

Anyone following the daily negotiations and observing the internal maneuvering behind both declared and secret alliances can grasp the extent of the opportunism and the pervasive logic of political blackmail governing relations among parties and political forces. This is particularly true of smaller formations and those betting on their ability to tip the balance, such as Avigdor Lieberman, a secular Zionist, as well as representatives of religious parties engaged in constant one-upmanship over extremism and demands.

From that perspective, the way these forces deal with the Palestinians becomes understandable within the same logic, morally as well, once one adds the psychological barrier created by the October 7 attack, which erected a wall higher and uglier still than the concrete separation barrier.

In this context, one may conclude that the coming elections will differ from previous ones in several respects. For Netanyahu, their outcome is an existential political and personal reckoning: either he remains in government or he ends up in prison. This has driven him to intensify his efforts to put his own house in order, against the backdrop of the wars unfolding in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and the Golan.

The blood of Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians has thus become fuel for the current electoral campaign.

Meanwhile, Knesset member Tzvi Sukkot, from Religious Zionism, declared: “We kill one hundred women and children in a single night and nobody cares. So why not kill more? The process of dehumanizing the Palestinians is now complete.”

These remarks were reported in an article by journalist Jack Khoury published in Haaretz on May 18, 2025.

What is now unfolding in multiple forms throughout the West Bank, and what is being called the “settlers’ revolt,” seeks to settle the fate of the West Bank once and for all in favor of annexation and the imposition of Israeli sovereignty.

This shift reflects the movement of the overwhelming majority of Israelis away from the secular, democratic Zionist current once embodied by the labor movement, particularly at the time of the state’s founding.

None of the three poles disputes the substance of Sukkot’s remarks, even when Netanyahu feels compelled to describe the ugliest forms of violence merely as “riots” that damage Israel’s image.

Nor do the three poles fundamentally differ over the implementation of the E1 settlement project east of Jerusalem, except on formal aspects that do nothing to alter the course of events.

This means that whoever wins the coming elections will not depart from this trajectory. The two-state solution is rejected by the prevailing Israeli mindset, while the destruction of the Palestinian political and administrative entity will continue to be regarded as a necessity enabling the completion of annexation, Judaization, and the extension of sovereignty over “Judea and Samaria,” in their terminology.

A Dangerous Parting of Ways

After kites were found near the Nahal Oz settlement, behind the security fence surrounding the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army announced, after examining them, that no suspicious or dangerous substances had been found.

Israeli threats of escalation nevertheless followed. Hamas cadres were arrested, and the air force carried out strikes on hospitals and tents, killing civilians.

At the same time, Israeli diplomacy has been speaking in international forums about the existential threat posed by these kites and their thin strings, while those who have lost their lives disappear from the debate.

Military-level statements have also indicated that the next phase would involve plans and thinking that could lead to a renewed occupation of Gaza City in order to eliminate what remains of Hamas.

Through this Gaza model, combined with what is taking place in the West Bank after Palestinians have been stripped of their humanity, an electoral equation emerges in which the number of dead and wounded steadily rises in order to harvest votes.

We simply do not know how much more blood will have to be shed for one party to gain an additional seat in the next Knesset.

All this, while the world witnesses in sound and image what is happening every day, points to the end of the secular and socialist Zionist project in whose name the State of Israel claimed to be a democratic oasis in the Arab desert and the representative of Western civilization in a Middle East portrayed as savage.

The debate within Israeli elites calling for entry into a post-Zionist phase and for solutions based on recognition of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination also appears to have come to an end.

These elections inaugurate a dangerous parting of ways, nourished by biblical myths and Talmudic rituals, in the service of the triumph of the idea of Greater Israel across the 27,000 square kilometers and more of historic Palestine, to which other occupied and annexed territories, such as the Golan, could be added.

It was also in this alarming context that an open letter signed by 102 former British and French diplomats was published, stating that “Palestine is being erased before the eyes of the world.”

In the letter, dated August 22, they called on the British and French governments to implement the rulings of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, suspend certain forms of economic and military cooperation, take concrete measures against investments linked to settlements, and use British and French political and economic influence to preserve the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state.

The response of governments, however, remains far below what is required.

The transformation of “democratic” Israel into a “biblical” Israel makes the challenge facing the Palestinian and Arab peace camp even more complex. It now goes beyond the mere ability to preserve the Palestinian political entity and revives the idea of historic Palestine as the counterpoint to Greater Israel.

And insofar as the birth of the State of Israel was a European-American undertaking, fairness demands that the birth of the State of Palestine be one as well.