As noted in a previous post, I'm an activist for #TheIsraeliDemocracts – #הדמוקרטים – a liberal, Zionist and democratic party in #Israel . There are upcoming general elections in less than two months (Oct 27th). According to polls, our side is likely going to win. In this post I would like to write about what could and should happen assuming this would be the case.

A short overview of the current parties. See a previous post (not up to date). Generally the main opposition block. or Eizencot's block, is expected to have roughly 60/120 seats. It may need extra coalition members from other parties. This is mainly what pundits write about now, so please go read about it elsewhere.

Israel has a parliamentary system. In the elections the members of parliament (that has a single house), the Knesset are being elected. They will be sworn into office two weeks later, on Nov. 10th, and this will start four more weeks (potentially with an extension of two more weeks) to form the ruling coalition and the government. Negotiations for forming the coalition tend to be painful and mostly happen at the last minute. So we should expect a government to be formed on Dec-8th or even Dec-22nd in case of an extension. And proceeded by many dramatic news items about all of it going to explode. And assuming that there won't be a 2019-style stalemate. But let's hope there won't be any.

The newly-formed government will likely have a wide spectrum of parties, including the Democracts and maybe Ra'am on the left and Israel Beitenu (Liberman) on the right. Most parties are right-leaning. None of them seem to have the fanatic flare of Ben Gvir and Smotrich, but at least some seem to share the sentiment of "the whole world is against us" that you see today in the actions of foreign minister Gideon Sa'ar.

I guess that the base of the expectations of the government is not the current Israel government. Rather, the one before it. That was also a wide coalition, united basically by being anti-Netanyahu, and by parties trying to do good for the whole public. It sounds naive, but it was just that: even the 2021-2022 government of Bennet and Lapid was a breath of fresh air compared to governments before it, let alone the dysfunctional government that followed it.

And then we get to the first problem: most parties in the Eisencot Block want to focus on the "80% we all agree on" and start the healing process. For instance, a lot of attention needs to be given to the whole issue of conscription and the state of Ultra Orthodox communities. The education system may need rebuilding. And taxes may need to be raised.

But the Democracts think that instead of maintaining such a large military force, we should try to close as many fronts ASAP, and that recruiting ultra orthodox to the military as is may have a bad effect on the military now. Although everybody agree that the state-tax-funded autonomies of the ultra orthodox must not be defunded.

And then again, there's also disagreement about Palestine. People on the Right seem to be afraid of that. I tend to think that they will be forced to follow something similar to Trump's Gaza Peace Plan forms a place to rebuild trust among the two parties, that is currently broken.

Right now we can hardly expect anything from the current government. We tried replacing it before elections and failed. However, we (including the small me as the fly riding on the horse) managed to stop almost all of the "Judicial reform". Levin, Rotman and co. planned to have this done by May 2023, and hardly any of this got through. We managed to start the process of tearing down the horrible structure of ultra orthodox communities, even though their parties[1] were part of the ruling coalition with a majority in parliament. However, just about the only effective minister in the government was Smotrich, who managed to expand the land grabs in the West Bank. In that front we did very poorly.

So, please wait a bit with steps against Israel. They currently mostly serve to bolster the mentality of "the whole world is against us". However, once a new government is formed - expected in December, it is very much accountable and responsible for its actions.

#ilpol #IsraeliElections2026 #Eizencot

[1] I guess a separate topic on the whole issue of ultra orthodox, conscription, their education system, and the funding of all of that is required. There are two ultra orthodox parties that in practice represent the interests of the corrupt religious elite of them, and that helps keep them very much poor and poorly-educated.

Elections in Israel are now 100 days away. I wanted to describe the current situations here. But before that I wanted to give a high level view of the parties and where I stand.

Israel has mostly a single political arena: the national, with a parliament of a single house, the Knesset. It has 120 seats. Elections are proportional representation, that is: parties set lists of candidates and citizens elect those lists.

There are currently two major blocks of parties: current coalition: supporters of Netanyahu. They currently hold 68/120 seats, however polls[1] predict that they'll have around 50/120 seats and not hold a majority. I'm not part of this block.

(There are potentially some parties that try to live in the space between the blocks. Their fate is not clear right now. I hope they'll eventually fade away, but currently this is just my hope. I'm not there)

The other major block is the opposition to Netanyahu. I'll try to give a brief picture of its composition.

Current polls predict currently a total of some 10/120 to the so-called "Arab" parties. This designates two or more parties. One of them (United Aram List, not to be confused with a potential Joint List) may be in the future coalition, other(s) are not likely. Parties in this space may yet join. The number of votes they get also depends on the turn up rates in the Arab population that is currently unpredictable. But I'm not part of that sub-block, So let's zoom in elsewhere.

Now we are left with the main opposition block. Currently four parties that are likely to form the next coalition. The two larger ones, with currently predicted more than 15/120 seats, are Yashar ("straight"), headed by Gadi Eisenkot, and Together, headed by Naftali Bennett. Both are new parties that are now mostly forming their organizations. Hopefully they'll manage to stick together. I'm not there.

To their right is Yisrael Beiteinu ("Israel our home") of Avigdor Liberman) that is somewhat fascist, but devout secular and will stick with some of the liberal values. Polls predict roughly 10/120. I'm not there.

And finally we get to where I am: The Democrats. The left-most part of that block. Polls predict some 10/120. We need to work to get more than that. Currently only party of the four that has set peace and end of conflict as a goal.

[1] Polls are always something to be taken with a grain of salt. Results of polls has been quite stable since the early days of the government about the composition of the major blocks. The content of them changed and I tend to trust those numbers less.

#ilpol #IsraeliElections2026