2026 Israeli Elections

Israelis went to the polls on October 27 for one of Israel’s most contentious elections in recent history. The result, which was far from conclusive in determining who would be prime minister, reflected a race that proved particularly heated. The elections were the first to take place since the October 7 attack and the incumbent prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had been under fire from many Israelis for his failure to prevent the attack as well as his handling of the Israel-Hamas War. The criticism came atop a host of other polarizing matters, including Netanyahu’s several criminal corruption cases, his reliance on far-right parties to remain in power, and his attempt in early 2023 to bring the judiciary under legislative oversight, which critics argued would weaken Israel’s checks and balances. For supporters of Netanyahu, however, his exceptionally long tenure as prime minister was evidence of effective leadership, including a hawkish commitment to national security, a dedication to preserving the state’s Jewish character, and an uncanny ability to advocate for Israel on the world stage.

In an election that many Israelis considered pivotal, voter turnout approached 80 percent and was the highest in more than two decades. Tens of thousands of Israelis residing abroad returned to the country to cast their ballots, traveling through an airport that had been targeted several times in Israel’s ongoing wars; under Israeli election law, Israeli citizens must be physically present in the country to vote. Turnout among Arab citizens was especially high, with some analysts attributing the increase to opposition to the policies and rhetoric of the far-right minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir. The election also saw a record number of double envelope ballots—votes cast by soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as well as diplomats and medical personnel—which the election committee estimated at about 600,000 (about one-tenth of the total number of votes).

Results

Election results showed a slight lead for Netanyahu’s incumbent coalition (53 seats) over the anti-Netanyahu bloc (48 seats; led by Gadi Eisenkot, whose party won 21 seats), but both blocs were far short of the majority (61 seats) needed to form a government. The Arab parties, which predominantly represent Arab communities that reject Zionism as a guiding ideology for government policy, together won 19 seats. Upon recommendation by the anti-Netanyahu bloc and the Arab parties, who together won 67 seats, Eisenkot was set to have the first opportunity to try to form a government.

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Although some figures within the anti-Netanyahu bloc called on Eisenkot to form a government with the support of the Arab parties, opposition from within the bloc made such an arrangement unlikely. Other figures encouraged the formation of a unity government between Netanyahu and Eisenkot, in effort to avoid a coalition that relies on far-right or Arab parties, but Eisenkot had ruled out joining a coalition with Netanyahu during his election campaign. The willingness of United Torah Judaism, a constituent party of Netanyahu’s coalition, to consider supporting Eisenkot also opened the possibility of forming a mostly right-wing government co-led by Eisenkot and Avigdor Liberman, the leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. Failure by both Eisenkot and Netanyahu to form a government would trigger a new election, with Netanyahu remaining in office as caretaker prime minister.

How do elections work in Israel?

Israel is a parliamentary democracy. Israelis vote for a political party to represent their interests in the legislature (Knesset), and parties are assigned seats proportional to the vote. After each election, the president (who is elected by the Knesset to a seven-year term) selects a prime minister from among the party leaders after considering the election results and consulting party leaders. The prime minister is then confirmed by a simple majority in the legislature. Israel’s many political parties do not typically win majorities in elections and must form coalitions with other parties, often by promising them an influential role in the prime minister’s cabinet.

All resident Israeli citizens, including Israel’s sizable minority of Palestinian Muslims, may vote in elections. Israeli settlers, most of whom live in territories that have not been formally annexed by Israel, may also vote. Most of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Jerusalem, who have permanent residency but usually reject Israeli citizenship (in protest against Israeli rule over East Jerusalem), cannot vote.

How is the prime minister chosen?

Israel’s prime minister is chosen by the members of the Knesset. In a tight contest, the process can take as long as three months. Days after an election takes place, when the results are finalized, the president (in 2026, Isaac Herzog) consults with party leaders to determine which member of the Knesset has the best prospect of forming a coalition. That member is often the leader of the largest party, but only if that leader appears to have enough support from members outside of their party.

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When the president formally tasks a member of the Knesset with forming a government, the designee has 28 days to form a government and may request an extension of 14 days if a coalition agreement seems close at hand. In order to become prime minister, the designee must gain the majority of votes in the Knesset in a vote of confidence. If every member of the Knesset participates in the vote of confidence, then the designee needs 61 of 120 votes; if any members of the Knesset are absent or abstain from the vote of confidence, then the vote of confidence may pass with fewer than 61 votes. If a coalition has fewer than 61 members but wins a vote of confidence, it becomes a minority government, which must attract support from outside the governing coalition in order to pass any legislation.

If the designee fails to win a vote of confidence within the time alotted, the president may task another member of the Knesset with forming a government. If the president notifies the Knesset that a government cannot be formed, the Knesset has 21 days to rally behind a candidate or, at the end of the 21-day period, call a new election and dissolve. If a new election is called, the incumbent prime minister remains in office as a caretaker.

Who were the major players?

Since Netanyahu was elected in 2009, the right-wing Likud party, rooted in Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s revisionist branch of Zionism, has dominated Israeli politics. The Labour Party, a legacy of David Ben-Gurion’s labor branch of Zionism, has struggled to perform in elections since the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process during the second intifada (2000–05). In 2024 it merged with another left-wing party, Meretz, to form the Democrats party after polling showed Labour may not make the threshold to enter the next Knesset on its own. Centrist parties that prioritize pressing security or social issues over ideological matters, such as Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, have led the opposition to Likud when Labour was unable to do so. A few small parties, which largely represent Palestinian citizens of Israel and categorically reject Zionism, make up a small but influential Arab bloc. In 2021 the Arab bloc was pivotal in helping Naftali Bennett, a right-wing settler, unseat Netanyahu.

Many analysts considered the 2026 elections to be a referendum on Netanyahu’s handling of October 7 and Israel’s wars against Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian regime. Some security-focused voters prefered Gadi Eisenkot (Eizenkot), a former general and a critic of Netanyahu’s war policies, although Eisenkot’s intention to enforce a draft of ultra-Orthodox Jews may alienate some voters on the religious right. Polling throughout the year before the election indicated that Netanyahu’s coalition, which won a razor-thin majority in the 2022 elections, would lose its majority and that the opposition would perform slightly better but still struggle to reach a majority.

Gadi Eisenkot

Eisenkot and his party came in second place. Eisenkot is a former IDF chief of staff who participated in Netanyahu’s war cabinet in the first year of the Israel-Hamas War, although he was highly critical of Netanyahu’s handling of the war, particularly for Netanyahu’s lack of an exit strategy, and quit in June 2024. At the start of the war, the participation in the cabinet of Eisenkot and his close associate Benny Gantz, another former chief of staff, lent considerable legitimacy to Netanyahu’s government; Gantz, at the time a more high-profile figure than Eisenkot, was characterized by Netanyahu’s critics as the “grown-up in the room.” In September 2025 Eisenkot created a new party to contest elections, Yashar! (Straight and True!), which polling showed to be competitive. After Eisenkot launched his campaign for prime minister in June 2026, the party began to challenge Likud for first place in the polls.

Although Gantz was favored for prime minister at the start of the Israel-Hamas War, support for him declined rapidly after his resignation from the cabinet. Opinion polling indicated that his Blue and White party would struggle to receive enough votes to enter the Knesset. On October 19, just days before the election, Gantz dropped out of the race.

Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid

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Bennett, a former protégé of Netanyahu, was his main election opponent throughout early 2026, according to opinion polling. Bennett’s standing declined after Lapid, who led the opposition in the outgoing Knesset, joined an electoral list headed by Bennett called BeYachad (Together) in April 2026. Lapid had been trailing in the opinion polling before the merger and hoped that the merger would increase his showing. But the prospect of Bennett and Lapid reviving their brief 2021–22 coalition, which included a party from the Arab bloc, proved unpopular with Israelis in the wake of the October 7 attack.

Bennett is often considered to be on the right of Netanyahu, with a base of support from religious Israeli settlers. In fact, his political rise in the 2010s coincided with his push for Israel to annex parts of the West Bank. But in 2021 he co-led a historic coalition with Lapid that included Bennett’s right-wing party, Lapid’s centrist party, other center and left-wing parties, and the United Arab List (Raʿam), a party from the Arab bloc. The coalition, whose policies skewed center-left, lost its majority only a year into Bennett’s stint—not from defections among his ideological rivals in the coalition but from defections within his own party. He subsequently took a break from politics, but after the October 7 attack he reemerged in the press, offering hawkish strategies to confront Hamas and Iran.

The far right: Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich

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After years on the fringes of Israeli politics, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich became essential to Netanyahu’s formation of a razor-thin coalition in 2022. Without the support of their far-right parties, Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) and Religious Zionism, Netanyahu would not have had enough votes in the Knesset to become prime minister. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich were the driving figures behind some of the most controversial policies of Netanyahu’s 2022–26 term, including the attempt to reform the judiciary, the relaxation of regulations over gun ownership, and the easing of restrictions on Israeli settlement activity and settler vigilantism. Both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich adamantly opposed the ceasefire agreements reached in the Israel-Hamas War in January and October 2025.