Israel’s Election Explained: Netanyahu Faces His Biggest Challenge Yet

Israeli voters head to the polls Tuesday in an election that will test whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can survive another political storm amid deep divisions over the October 7 failures, years of war, and military service requirements.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, faces a serious challenge from former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, whose newly formed Yashar Party has surged in recent polls. The election will test whether Netanyahu can overcome criticism for October 7 intelligence failures, divisions over the war, and growing calls to end military service exemptions for ultra-Orthodox young men.

President Donald Trump has made his preference clear, issuing an emphatic endorsement of Netanyahu ahead of the election and warning that the United States could be forced to shoulder more of the burden of confronting Iran if Israelis choose a different leader.

“Bibi Netanyahu has been a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump wrote in his endorsement last week.

“If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so,” he added, concluding: “BIBI NETANYAHU WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”

How Israel’s Elections Work

Unlike in the United States, Israelis do not directly elect their prime minister. They vote for political parties, which receive seats in Israel’s 120-member parliament, known as the Knesset. The leader who can assemble enough parliamentary support to form a government becomes prime minister.

A majority generally requires 61 seats. Because Israel uses proportional representation, no single party has ever won an outright majority on its own. Instead, parties negotiate to form governing coalitions, often giving smaller factions significant influence over national policy.

Parties must receive at least 3.25% of the vote to enter the Knesset. Those that fall short receive no seats.

For the winning party, the challenge is not simply winning more seats than opponents. The party’s leader must assemble a coalition with enough support to govern.

Netanyahu’s Likud is a right-wing party that has long emphasized national security, a strong military, and a hard line toward Iran. Yashar, by contrast, is led by Eisenkot, a former military chief who has criticized Netanyahu’s handling of the October 7 failures and supports requiring broader military service. Another major challenger is B’Yachad, an alliance led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett that brings together centrist and right-leaning voters opposed to Netanyahu’s continued leadership.

Recent polls have put Eisenkot’s Yashar Party ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud, although neither political bloc has demonstrated a consistent path to the 61 seats needed for a majority.

A Walla poll published October 20 projected Yashar winning 23 seats, compared with 19 for Likud. Bennett’s B’Yachad party was projected to win 14 seats. Netanyahu’s coalition bloc was projected at 48 seats, compared with 54 for opposition parties.

Israel’s political landscape also leans to the right, with the left-wing having virtually no power. For much of Israel’s early history, the Labor Party and its predecessors dominated politics, leading the government from Israel’s founding in 1948 until 1977. At its peak, Labor’s Alignment won 56 of the Knesset’s 120 seats in 1969. That dominance ended in 1977, when Menachem Begin’s Likud won power for the first time.

Labor’s support has since dwindled, and in 2024 it joined with the left-wing Meretz party to form the Democrats. Its decline reflects a broader shift in Israeli politics, where right-wing and centrist parties now dominate and are competing to curb Netanyahu’s power.

Netanyahu’s Political Future

Netanyahu is no stranger to high political stakes. Even before the October 7 attacks, Israel had already gone through five elections in just a few years as coalition governments repeatedly fell apart. Netanyahu himself served as prime minister from 1996 to 1999, from 2009 to 2021, and again since 2022, becoming the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history.

His political career has been marked by repeated elections, coalition breakdowns, and intense disputes over his leadership.

Before October 7, Israel was consumed by mass protests over Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms, which critics argued threatened judicial independence while supporters said they would restore authority to elected officials.

The Hamas attacks and ensuing war shifted national attention toward security. In the aftermath, a wartime coalition government was formed, temporarily muting some political tensions while all focus was on ensuring the country’s defense and survival. But questions about the government’s responsibility for the failures that preceded the massacre have remained central to current campaign rhetoric.

Netanyahu’s supporters point to his experience confronting Iran and its regional proxies, as well as his relationship with Trump, as reasons to keep him in office. Critics argue that the October 7 failures demand accountability and a change in leadership.

Military Draft Exemptions 

One of the most contentious issues is whether ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, Jewish men should be required to serve in the Israel Defense Forces.

The policy dates back to the founding of Israel, when Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion agreed to exempt approximately 400 yeshiva students from military service. The arrangement was intended to help rebuild the world of Jewish religious scholarship, which had been devastated by the Holocaust. The limited exemption gradually expanded over the following decades, allowing growing numbers of ultra-Orthodox to avoid military service while studying Torah full-time.

Netanyahu’s coalition has included and depended on Haredi political parties that oppose drafting young men studying in religious seminaries, or yeshivas, into the Israel Defense Forces.

Many ultra-Orthodox leaders fear military service could pull students away from religious studies, expose them to secular and forbidden lifestyles, or place them under non-religious authority structures.

But after three years of war, support has grown significantly among the broader Israeli public for requiring Haredi Israelis to serve alongside their peers. Many Israelis argue the military needs additional manpower to ease the burden on reservists who have carried an unsustainable burden through repeated deployments since October 7. Others say it is unfair that Haredi communities receive significant economic assistance without their young people serving in the military.

That is not to say that no Haredi Israelis serve in the military. While still a minority, some ultra-Orthodox men enlist, including in the IDF’s all-ultra-Orthodox Hasmonean Brigade. Founded after October 7, the brigade provides a framework for Haredi men who wish to serve while maintaining their religious practices. It operates as an all-male unit with religious accommodations for its soldiers.

According to Ynet, the brigade has recently carried out raids targeting weapons and terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon, while its first class of soldiers also recently completed officer training courses.

Netanyahu is in the tricky position of needing to balance demands for a broader draft against the risk of alienating the parties whose support he needs to remain in power. Eisenkot, meanwhile, supports ending the broad exemptions, giving voters an alternative on an issue that touches both national security and the relationship between religion and the state.

Gadi Eisenkot’s Challenge

Eisenkot, who served as IDF chief of staff from 2015 to 2019, is presenting himself as a security-focused alternative to Netanyahu. He rose through the military ranks after beginning his career as an infantryman and has criticized the government’s handling of the October 7 failures.

His campaign also carries a personal cost of the war. His son, Gal Meir Eisenkot, 25, died in December 2023 after being wounded during an operation in Gaza. His death has become part of the family’s experience of the war that Eisenkot is now addressing as a political leader.

Eisenkot’s policy positions are not far removed from Netanyahu’s on national security, and international audiences may see little change in Israel’s overall approach to Iran or the Palestinians if he is successful. He supports preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and opposes the idea that a two-state agreement with the Palestinians is achievable in the near future.

“I’ve never said that the solution is two states for two peoples,” Eisenkot said on the campaign trail. “There is a very deep religious-national conflict here, and anyone who thinks an agreement can be reached now is gravely mistaken.”

His differences with Netanyahu are more pronounced over accountability, the management of security institutions, and Jewish extremist violence in the West Bank.

Eisenkot has advocated stronger action against Jewish settlers committing violent crimes in the West Bank, including reinstating administrative detention for Jewish suspects, replacing security officials he believes have failed to address the problem, and dismantling many newer settlement outposts established or expanded under the current government.

Although he supports Israeli settlements in general, he opposes the planned E1 settlement project east of Jerusalem, which critics say could undermine the territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state.

The Iran Factor

Regional security has remained central to the campaign. Netanyahu has warned that Israeli military intelligence and the Mossad believe Iran and its proxies are considering efforts to influence the election.

“We have clear warnings from military intelligence and the Mossad that Iran and its proxies are considering ways to influence the elections,” Netanyahu told the Jerusalem Post.

“If they do, it’ll be a big mistake for them because we’ll respond with force and might they can’t even imagine,” he warned.

Netanyahu sparked a political firestorm Sunday after sharing an AI-generated image depicting a nuclear explosion over Tel Aviv, with a post warning that Israelis who vote against him risk exposing their families to a “second Holocaust” if Iran acquires nuclear weapons.

Eisenkot fired back, accusing Netanyahu of using “lies and scare tactics” and told the prime minister, “You’re hysterical.”

“As in every election campaign, it’s the same method of lies and scare tactics. This time, threatening Israeli citizens with mass destruction,” he said. “And this is after you failed to achieve the objectives of the war in Iran.”

Still, Trump has made it clear that he prefers Netanyahu as a partner in combating Iran. In a post Sunday night, Trump urged Israelis to “remember that Bibi has been an outstanding Warrior Prime Minister,” adding, “There can no longer be the chant heard around the World of ‘Death to America, Death to Israel,’ and there won’t be. Vote for Bibi Netanyahu for Prime Minister, we have to finish the job that we started!”

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