Israel’s election is being presented and fought as a referendum on one man, his policies, actions, leadership, and history especially with respect to October 7. It is also fought as a personality contest between Netanyahu, Eisenkot, Bennet, Gantz and Lapid.  The Israeli voter tends to be swayed as much by personality as by political ideology, with trust in security ideology taking a prime position. The current averaged polls put the current Netanyahu bloc at 53 seats, the opposition at 53, and the Arab parties at 14, with 61 needed for a majority.

While the rhetoric and party platforms are understandable, the parties differ primarily across a spectrum of right-wing nationalist, centrist, and left-wing platforms, divided largely by their positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the role of religion in state affairs, and governance. 

Some details appear on the parties’ websites, but they generally avoid specifics in their campaign rhetoric. In general, they miss the point: the next government will inherit an agenda set months, if not years, before the campaign began. Neither bloc has offered coordinated convincing answers to the issues detailed below. While most of the parties have slogans or platforms to deal with the issues some are contradictory and some just ignore the pressing questions.

These issues are separately and together capable of breaking any future coalition:

The Haredi draft. A coalition that depends on Haredi parties cannot lean on them to pass conscription legislation, and stands the risk of the Haredi parties collapsing a coalition if any binding conscription legislation is passed. On the other hand, a coalition without the Haredim will, at best have a slim majority. Any conscription-related legislation or efforts will have the High Court waiting to strike it down if it cannot guarantee full equality for........

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