With elections looming in 2026, Israel’s Left trots out fading stars

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the morning of October 8, 2023, almost no one in Israel imagined that the next election campaign would focus on anything other than the most horrific massacre in the nation’s history since the Holocaust.

Except, perhaps, for one person: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

More than two years later, it is clear that while the coming elections will indeed unfold in the shadow of the massacre seared into the consciousness of every Israeli, they will not revolve around it alone. Over the course of two years, Israelis have returned to their familiar disputes and entrenched political battles — for better, and mostly for worse.

The new secular year, which begins this week, will be an election year in Israel, and given the alternatives already on the table, it is possible to say in advance: These will be bad elections.

What issues will dominate the campaign, and who will remain standing at the end?

Any forecast must be delivered with endless caveats, like an Israeli meteorologist warning of a hurricane that ultimately dissolves into a rain shower. No election campaign ends the way it begins — the issues change, and so do the front-runners.

In every election cycle, some new political star emerges — a flashy outsider who suddenly becomes the campaign’s central attraction. This time, the center-left is pinning its hopes on two former stars whose luster has dimmed but are nonetheless trying to present themselves as new faces: former prime minister Naftali Bennett and former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot.

Bennett sat out the last election cycle altogether and initially reaped dividends in the polls — but he seems to have already peaked. The second, Gadi Eisenkot, made his U-turn later: first resigning from the war cabinet, and later leaving the Knesset and the joint party with Benny Gantz — a figure to whom we will return.

Bennett registered his party on April 1, 2025, under the name “Bennett 2026,” but as the new civil year opens, he is already beginning to sound like a worn-out record. Prolonged exposure — even at the top of the polls — has diminished his appeal as the next new thing.

Then two weeks ago he was in the headlines again — but for an embarrassing reason. The Iranians crowed that they had hacked his messaging account and released personal materials. In an effort to remain relevant, last week Bennett raised the stakes and sharpened his rhetoric. The Qatar-gate scandal had come back into the news, with revelations of Netanyahu’s advisors trading messages about their efforts on the emirate’s behalf; Bennett thundered that this was “treason.” The politician who once spoke soothingly of healing and reconciliation has, in recent weeks, sounded more like a typical online commenter.

The second new-old candidate from the center-left camp, Gadi Eisenkot, has assumed the role of the child from “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Sitting in a television studio two weeks ago, he admitted out loud what everyone already knew: that the left probably can’t form a government without Arab support.

Lapid, Bennett, and Avigdor Lieberman rushed to deny it, but Eisenkot’s clear voice will be heard again — this time in Likud campaign ads.

Coming to Netanyahu’s assistance, perhaps unintentionally, were Arab Knesset members. First among them was Mansour Abbas, who lavished praise on the right-wing leaders who had turned their backs on him, including Lieberman — for whom a compliment from Abbas is roughly equivalent to a Reform MK praising Moshe Gafni. More damage than benefit.

Abbas’s remarks were widely interpreted as an attempt to reassure Arab voters focused on civil issues — chief among them rampant crime — that he still has something to offer as a natural partner in a left-wing government.

More surprising was the statement by Ahmad Tibi, the most prominent and veteran of the Arab MKs. Tibi did not rule out forming an alternative government through external Arab support and told Channel 12 News: “We are determined to do everything to remove the government we despise — including things we have not done in the past.”

Tibi rarely misspeaks. His remark reflects a broader shift within Arab society — one that bears a certain resemblance to currents in the chareidi street. After three years of systemic failure, more and more voters are asking what value there is in turning out to vote for sectoral representatives.

In his studio appearances, Tibi attempted to deliver a message to Arab voters: The representatives may not change, but a new beginning is still possible — a left-Arab partnership in which Arab MKs would not serve as ministers but would become kingmakers.

As with the chareidim, so too with the Arabs; sometimes it is preferable to remain outside the coalition and price every vote, rather than enter government and bear responsibility for the entire package. Tibi understands this today; the chareidim — perhaps tomorrow. —

“I love the country more than I hate Bibi”

From polling at 40 mandates just two years ago, Benny Gantz now finds himself fighting for survival above the electoral threshold. Staring defeat in the face, the former general has come to one conclusion — it’s time to embrace the startling new tactic of embracing Bibi.

Among leaders of the center-left camp, there is little agreement — except on one matter. Lapid, Liberman, Eisenkot, Bennett, and even Yair Golan all agree that Gantz must be removed from the race before the ballots are cast.

But Gantz has no intention of stepping aside voluntarily. It remains unclear how the numbers will ultimately fall or whether his Blue and White party will cross the threshold, but his willingness to fight back is notable. He recognizes that his true rivals are not figures from the right, but rather his supposed partners on the left.

“They are fighting among themselves over votes within the bloc, while I am trying to break the bloc paradigm,” Gantz said this week, positioning himself as someone no longer willing to march in lockstep with the binary division between Netanyahu’s supporters and his opponents.

Gantz also reminds observers that in the previous election cycle, he refused to step aside, despite polls predicting his collapse. The man who in 2023 was the only candidate to threaten Netanyahu in suitability polls has now, in his 2026 incarnation, become Netanyahu’s renewed hope. The enemy of my enemy is my friend — and there are no more bitter rivals than bloc leaders turning their backs on a partner poised to fall.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1093)