The ongoing wars of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have provided him with additional political breathing space and helped to ensure his political survival.
They may also have paved the way for postponing the Israeli elections scheduled for next October, an outcome that would align closely with his political interests, particularly as it is becoming increasingly apparent that securing victory in the next elections will be far more difficult than it was before.
The political landscape inside Israel is shifting in ways that no longer work to Netanyahu’s advantage, and this is being compounded by the potentially consequential role of Palestinian voters and other political forces that could further undermine his electoral prospects.
Israel continues to wage war in Gaza and Lebanon, while the possibility of renewed confrontation with Iran remains on the table. Within Netanyahu’s political calculus, attempts by the Israeli government to reignite the escalation with Iran may appear entirely rational if such a move serves his political survival and interests.
Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history. Under his leadership, the right-wing Likud Party has dominated Israeli politics since 2009. A master of politics, Netanyahu may still be able to cling to power for several additional months beyond the scheduled election date in an effort to improve his electoral standing.
Legally, postponing elections in Israel is possible only under highly exceptional circumstances, and it would likely require special legislation passed by the Israeli Knesset, alongside a broad political consensus. This has happened only once before – during the 1973 October War when the elections were delayed for two months. Such a scenario is far from guaranteed today.
Netanyahu was voted out of office in the 2021 elections due to corruption cases that continue to shadow his political career. Those cases remain open, and he is still appearing in court as part of the ongoing legal proceedings against him.
Following his return to office at the end of 2022, Netanyahu assembled what is widely regarded as the most far-right government in Israel’s history. His coalition triggered deep internal polarisation, clashing with broad segments of Israeli society over issues ranging from a judicial overhaul to the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews.
At the same time, the conduct of Israel’s wars under his government, particularly in Gaza, and the scale of civilian casualties and destruction, have subjected Israel to a level of international criticism unprecedented in its modern history.
Netanyahu has also faced mounting accusations of mismanaging the Gaza war. There are growing accusations that the expansion of military fronts and the pursuit of successive wars have, at least in part, served domestic political objectives tied to his personal survival. This is precisely why the opening of any new front in parallel with the election cycle is increasingly being viewed inside Israel as a clear political manoeuvre rather than a purely strategic necessity.
At the end of last month, former Israeli prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid announced that they would merge their parties, Yesh Atid and Bennett 2026, into a new political bloc called “Together” ahead of the next Knesset elections.
This is not the first political partnership between the two men. In 2021, they joined forces to form what became known as the “government of change” that ended Netanyahu’s 12-year hold on power.
Palestinians inside Israel played a pivotal role in enabling the Bennett-Lapid coalition to unseat Netanyahu in that year, and the alliance was supported by the inclusion of the United Arab List led by Mansour Abbas, although the latter was not granted ministerial portfolios within the coalition government.
The newly announced “Together” alliance represents the most significant effort so far to reorganise and consolidate the Israeli opposition ahead of what is expected to be a difficult and highly competitive electoral contest against Netanyahu.
OPPOSITION: Bennett 2026, established last year, is generally classified as a nationalist right-wing party. By contrast, Lapid’s Yesh Atid is a centrist, secular-liberal party founded in 2012 that emerged as a major political force in the elections the following year.
The ideological gap between Bennett’s and Lapid’s parties is therefore clear. It was precisely this gap that led many to describe their previous alliance as fragile, and this was widely seen as one of the reasons for its collapse after only a year and a half in power.
That earlier alliance was built around a shared objective: removing Netanyahu from the centre of Israeli politics. Today, that same objective appears to be bringing the two men together once again. Bennett and Lapid converge tactically on a number of issues related to domestic governance and the management of state institutions and opposition to Netanyahu’s policies, despite their clear ideological differences.
They broadly align with Netanyahu on the Israeli wars against Hamas in Gaza, as well as on Israel’s confrontations with Lebanon and Iran, though they differ sharply over the way Netanyahu has managed those conflicts.
Bennett and Lapid also share significant common ground on the Palestinian issue, even though Lapid’s positions are often framed in more diplomatic language. Bennett openly rejects negotiations with the Palestinians, opposes the two-state solution, and refuses the establishment of a Palestinian state. Lapid, by contrast, accepts the principle of negotiations and a conditional two-state framework, but he does so without major concessions, under stringent security conditions, and without a full withdrawal from the Palestinian Territories occupied in 1967.
Bennett has consistently supported settlement expansion and annexation policies. Lapid’s position is more restrained, though he likewise supports retaining the major settlement blocs, opposes their dismantlement, and backs continued construction within existing settlements. Netanyahu and his current government have adopted positions towards the Palestinian issue that are widely viewed as even more hardline than those of Bennett and Lapid.
The two men are also seeking to bring Gadi Eisenkot into their political alliance as part of their efforts to challenge Netanyahu. Eisenkot, a centrist figure with a strong security background and a former chief of staff of the Israeli military, holds positions on the Palestinian issue that largely resemble Lapid’s.
Yet the approaches advanced towards the Palestinian issue by Lapid and Eisenkot remain far removed from those traditionally associated with the Israeli left, even if they are still less hardline than the right-wing camp led by Netanyahu. Between the competing strategies of “managing” the conflict and resolving it, time appears to be the primary dividing factor, shaping the differing degrees of rigidity embodied by Netanyahu, Bennett, and Lapid and the broader political circles surrounding them.
Eisenkot currently heads the centrist Yashar Party following his departure from the Blue and White led by Benny Gantz. He has not yet made a final decision on whether to join the “Together” alliance.
Yisrael Beiteinu led by Avigdor Lieberman, Blue and White, the Democrats, and Yashar all share a common objective centered on removing Netanyahu from power. That same objective previously brought these factions together in the coalition government formed under the Bennett-Lapid alliance.
Taken together, these opposition parties appear more flexible and diplomatic in their approach to the Palestinians and regional issues than Netanyahu’s current government. Since Netanyahu’s coalition returned to power, the Palestinian issue has entered one of its bleakest phases, while the wider region has been plunged into a level of tension and warfare unseen in decades.
Lapid and Bennett have so far ruled out including the Palestinian parties in Israel in their joint electoral list, unlike the arrangement that helped them defeat Netanyahu in the past. Yet this does not diminish the potentially decisive Palestinian role in the coming elections and in efforts to unseat Netanyahu’s government.
In a political system where every vote can prove consequential, the electoral weight of the Palestinian parties inside the 1948 territories is increasingly evident.
The growing strength of these parties, alongside higher levels of political coordination and voter mobilisation, could serve not only the domestic interests of Palestinians in Israel, who constitute the country’s largest minority accounting for more than one fifth of the population, but may also evolve into a future source of pressure on Israeli government policy towards the national Palestinian issue.
SYSTEM: It is not uncommon for governments in Israel to collapse before completing their legally mandated four-year term, triggering early parliamentary elections.
Israel is widely regarded as a fragile parliamentary system, largely because of the structure of its electoral system, which is based on full proportional representation within a single nationwide electoral district and a relatively low electoral threshold currently set at 3.25 per cent.
This system has produced a highly fragmented Knesset, with a large number of parties represented in parliament and governments formed through coalition arrangements that often rest on narrow parliamentary majorities. Such recurring patterns unfold against the backdrop of deep structural divisions within Israeli society spanning religious versus secular communities, Mizrahi versus Ashkenazi Jews, and Jewish versus non-Jewish populations.
That electoral system gives the large parties and major alliances, particularly those positioned as the second- or third-largest blocs, significant leverage in obstructing the formation of a government if they refuse to join either of the leading contenders. At the same time, it grants smaller parties considerable bargaining power, since the withdrawal of even a minor coalition partner can bring down an entire government.
Within this framework, Israeli politics has become increasingly unstable. That instability was especially evident between 2019 and 2022, when Israel held five legislative elections in rapid succession.
The Palestinian parties inside Israel are increasingly moving towards the formation of a unified joint list in the upcoming elections. Earlier this year, following a massive demonstration and a widespread strike in the city of Sakhnin protesting against the sharp rise in crime within Palestinian society, and amid what many Palestinians described as Israeli government and police negligence if not complicity, an overwhelming sentiment emerged in favour of reunifying the Palestinian parties under a single electoral framework.
During that same event, the Palestinian parties in Israel signed a joint pledge committing themselves to work together towards reviving the Joint List ahead of the elections. The initiative brought together Ayman Odeh, head of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash), Ahmed Tibi, leader of the Arab Movement for Change (Ta’al), Sami Abu Shehadeh, chairman of the National Democratic Assembly (Balad), and Mansour Abbas, head of United Arab List (Ra’am).
Recent opinion polls project major gains for a unified Palestinian electoral list, potentially increasing Palestinian representation in the Israeli parliament from 10 seats to as many as 15. Under such a scenario, the Joint List could emerge as either the second- or third-largest bloc in the Knesset.
The alliance was originally formed in 2015, when it brought together the leading Palestinian parties in Israel and secured the largest parliamentary representation that Palestinians had ever achieved in the Knesset. The Joint List won 13 seats in the 2015 elections, before increasing its representation to 15 in 2020, becoming the third-largest parliamentary bloc in the Knesset at the time.
The alliance later fragmented ahead of the following elections. However, its number of seats could rise even further if Palestinian voter turnout increases in the upcoming elections. There is a clear correlation between the unity and cohesion of the Palestinian parties and higher levels of popular participation.
If completed, the formation of a unified Arab electoral list in the upcoming elections could become a major instrument in removing Netanyahu’s government by fundamentally reshaping the parliamentary map. Such a development could deny Netanyahu’s bloc the 61-seat majority required to form a government, while compelling the winning camp to coordinate politically with the Palestinian parties.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 14 May, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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