Israel votes on Tuesday in an election often described as the most consequential in its history. Yet on many questions that outsiders might expect to divide the candidates, the frontrunners largely agree. None of the leading contenders has challenged the war on Gaza launched after the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, or the wars that followed, including the one on Iran. Most have also failed to offer a clear route to a two-state solution or to a fair settlement with the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.
The real dividing line is domestic. Voters are choosing between the hard-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which would be free of the judicial oversight he has criticized, and a loose coalition of opponents. That coalition promises a broadly similar policy agenda, but within the law and without the more extreme elements of the current government.
On the two-state solution, Israel committed to work toward it in the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, but few contenders seem ready to honor that pledge. The government is widely accused of abetting settler attacks across the West Bank and of backing construction in occupied territory in defiance of international law. That includes the E1 settlement plan, which ministers openly say will bury the two-state idea. Netanyahu has promised "there will be no Palestinian state." Gadi Eisenkot of the Yashar party called the principle of two states for two peoples "a mistake." Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionist party urged the next government to cancel the Oslo Accords, pursue sovereignty and encourage migration from Gaza and the West Bank. Democrats leader Yair Golan said a leap to two states is impossible while Israeli society remains in trauma, and pointed instead to "civil separation and security responsibility."
The conscription of the growing ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, population is an issue largely unique to Israel, and its prominence has grown as the human and economic costs of the wars have mounted. Netanyahu still depends on two main Haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, for support in the Knesset. They have demanded legislation overturning the Supreme Court ruling of June 25, 2024 and shielding ultra-Orthodox youth from the draft.
After about 40 Haredim were arrested this month for avoiding conscription, Netanyahu said the arrests were "a deliberate attempt to harm the process of drafting Haredim without coercion." Shas leader Aryeh Deri said his party would not support or join any government unless the status of yeshiva students is regulated. Eisenkot framed the vote as a choice between "Netanyahu's draft-dodging government" and a government of conscription led by him. Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman said Netanyahu is "a hostage to the draft evaders."
The judicial overhaul is another flashpoint. Days after taking office in 2022, the government unveiled a plan to curb the courts, which set off months of mass protests in 2023 before the war on Gaza interrupted them. The coalition has since passed measures changing how judges are appointed. In July, a law stripped Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara of many powers, letting the government reject her legal advice and choose its own lawyers in court. Both measures are due to take effect after the election, and most of the opposition has vowed to reverse them. The government has also boycotted Chief Justice Isaac Amit. Critics call this an assault on democracy by a prime minister facing a long-running corruption trial, while Justice Minister Yariv Levin calls the election a historic chance to finish the job.
Netanyahu argues that Israel needs "we the people," not "we the judges," and says the judiciary must not crush the Knesset or the executive. Naftali Bennett, co-leader of the Together alliance and a former prime minister, pledged to cancel all the "legal revolution laws" as soon as the Knesset convenes.
Accountability for October 7 has dominated the campaign, even as the killing of more than 74,000 people in Gaza has been absent from the platforms of the two main alliances. Inquiries into security failures led Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi to announce his resignation in January 2025, and a bitter dispute with the prime minister ended with Shin Bet head Ronen Bar leaving in June last year. No comparable inquiry has examined Netanyahu's own role, despite recent reports that the UAE and Egypt warned him before the attack and long-standing criticism of his policy of keeping Hamas in power in Gaza as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority.
Eisenkot said Netanyahu "was warned and did not act" and promised a State Commission of Inquiry. Netanyahu told the Knesset his government wants an inquiry with "as broad public support as possible." The proposed government-led inquiry never reached its final reading and has been deferred to the next session.