Come October, Israelis Will Vote on Rule by Netanyahu

[Celerity]

Replacing him, however, may require having an Arab party in the government, which is anathema to many Israelis.

https://prospect.org/2026/07/10/come-october-israelis-will-vote-on-rule-by-netanyahu/


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, April 14, 2026. Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP Photo

Israel is still waiting for Benjamin Netanyahu to decide on a date for this year’s parliamentary election, the first since the October 7, 2023, attack and the subsequent Gaza—and Lebanese and Iranian—wars. The default date would be Tuesday, October 27, the latest allowed by the law, but there’s reportedly concern in government circles that the number will stir up unwanted associations with October 7th, and hurt the chances of the man who, after all, was in charge when Israel was attacked on that date nearly three years ago. While his current government remains in power, Netanyahu is frantically pushing to enact as much of his domestic agenda as possible. The Knesset will be adjourning on July 16, and will reconvene only after the election, but in the remaining days it is in session, it’s all hands on deck as the government attempts to rush through the legislative process many of the bills it didn’t succeed in making law during the past four years. The opposition will block them when it is numerically possible.

The bills in question include measures that would prevent the arrest of ultra-Orthodox men who don’t report for military service, and another that would equalize a range of financial benefits received by yeshiva students with those of army veterans. Other bills would reduce the independence and authority of the country’s courts, its legal establishment, and the electronic media, making them all more subordinate to the political powers. The trend to make Israeli society more subject to Jewish religious law also figures prominently in recent legislation before the Knesset. Some of these new laws, if passed, will be challenged and likely overturned on constitutional grounds by the High Court of Justice. But even such defeat is a form of victory for Netanyahu, as it gives added credence to the right-wing claim that the court is out of control and out of touch, ready to defy the legislature and the public that elected it.

The right’s war on the court was ratcheted up on July 5, when Netanyahu’s justice and communications ministers announced that the government does not intend to honor a High Court ruling that ordered the convening of the semi-independent body that must approve the proposed sale of commercial TV Channel 13. Apparently fearing that the new owners will push the channel’s news coverage leftward, the government is throwing up one obstacle after another to block consummation of the deal. It seems bizarre that Netanyahu’s government would choose its unhappiness over the sale of a relatively minor TV channel as the grounds for initiating a constitutional crisis, but that is precisely what it will be doing if it defies a High Court ruling. Even the nation’s generally timid president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the government’s announcement, calling it “a red line that should not be crossed under any circumstances.”

It would not be wrong to characterize the upcoming election as a referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu. In an earlier era, he would not dare to be running again: He is well into the seventh year of his criminal trial, with its end still over the horizon. Israel remains involved in wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran (with its soldiers also occupying a “buffer zone” inside Syria), with the “total victory” promised in each conflict now little more than a joke. Yet the premier has stymied all attempts to convene a state commission of inquiry to examine how the state was caught unprepared in October 2023. Israel’s seemingly ironclad, strategic relationships with the U.S. government and with Diaspora Jewry have both been severely damaged, and with no obvious gain. And the Netanyahu government’s failure to deal honestly and realistically with the issue of military service for Haredi men, roughly 90,000 of whom are now legally considered draft dodgers, is in keeping with its general refusal to address the demographic and political non-sustainability of the unique privileges granted to this rapidly growing community (its annual growth rate is the highest in the developed world), whose leaders have become accustomed to having their demands acceded to in return for their support of the coalition.

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[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Bibi needs to go

Many if not most American Jews are NOT happy with Bibi

[MustLoveBeagles]

2. Agreed