Israel’s Election: Understanding Who’s Who and What’s at Stake

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS | EZRA HESS AND ITTAI RONEN

Israelis vote on October 27 for the 120-member twenty-sixth Knesset in an election widely viewed domestically as among the country’s most consequential. It is the first since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks and could become a referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu’s continued premiership. Neither bloc has a clear route to the sixty-one seats required to govern.

Polling averages from October 12 to 19 put the opposition on 51.3 seats, Netanyahu’s coalition on 45.1, Arab non-aligned parties on 13.6 and Jewish non-aligned parties on 10.1. Coalition-building is complicated. The 3.25 per cent electoral threshold, the Bader-Ofer Law and the president’s mandate process shape the outcome. Palestinian statehood is not a priority for most Jewish-majority parties; only minority Arab parties support it. The change bloc lacks an agreed successor to Netanyahu and has not addressed sitting with Arab parties. A rotational government, inclusion of Arab parties or ultra-Orthodox parties could produce a majority; failure could trigger another election.

Comment

Israel’s proportional system turns the election into an exercise in coalition architecture. No party has won the 61 Knesset seats needed for a majority alone, so the operative question is which combinations of Likud, Otzma Yehudit, Shas, Religious Zionism–Zehut, Arab parties and United Torah Judaism can overcome mutual political objections. The polling averages place the opposition ahead, yet short of a governing majority; small factions therefore hold leverage disproportionate to their vote share.

The 2019–2022 electoral cycle showed how coalition failure can convert one election into a sequence of elections. Repeated failures to form durable governments led to multiple ballots before a coalition formed in 2021 and collapsed in 2022, returning Israel to the polls. The present map carries a comparable structural risk: United Torah Judaism’s stated willingness not to block an Eisenkot-led government, Ra’am’s potential role and the change bloc’s silence on Arab participation each create a veto point.

Foreign-policy effects would likely be incremental rather than abrupt. CFR’s contributors identify a continuing Israeli consensus on Iran, Lebanon and Syria, while coalition composition would shape movement on Palestinian statehood and ties with Arab neighbours. The decisive variable is whether Ra’am or United Torah Judaism becomes a necessary coalition partner.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If neither Ra’am nor United Torah Judaism will join a governing coalition, what coalition formula could still deliver 61 Knesset seats—and at what cost to the change bloc’s programme?

The pattern suggests that a rotational arrangement between Gadi Eisenkot and Benjamin Netanyahu is the most mathematically available route, but it would strain the change bloc’s central rationale of keeping Netanyahu from the premiership. Alternatively, bringing in Ra’am would test a long-standing political taboo, while relying on United Torah Judaism would reopen the ultra-Orthodox conscription dispute. My assessment is that coalition arithmetic will push the parties toward one of those compromises rather than toward a clean ideological majority.

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