{"id":3331,"date":"2026-10-27T09:03:50","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T04:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3331"},"modified":"2026-10-27T09:03:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T04:03:50","slug":"netanyahus-political-survival-on-the-line-as-israel-votes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3331","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu’s political survival on the line as Israel votes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Radical Israeli regime leader Benjamin Netanyahu faces a fight for political survival in Israel\u2019s election on Tuesday, with voters weighing his leadership after the Gaza carnage, war with Iran, and Israel\u2019s deepening international isolation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet Netanyahu, Israel\u2019s longest-serving leader with 19 years in office, remains a formidable survivor, with nationalist politics increasingly \u200centrenched and Israel\u2019s fragmented system potentially leaving him best placed to form a government.<\/p>\n

Opinion polls show a close race<\/a> between Netanyahu\u2019s Likud party and its radical allies and a rival alliance led by Gadi Eisenkot<\/a>, a former military chief of staff and security hawk with backers on the right and in the centre.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu is campaigning on his wartime leadership and his alliance with US President Donald Trump<\/a>, who has endorsed him and joined \u200bIsrael in waging war on Iran.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu said on Sunday that Trump was prepared to act again to \u201cfinally\u201d remove the Iranian threat, but only if Netanyahu remained \u200bin power.<\/p>\n

Eisenkot has accused Netanyahu of \u201crelying on a campaign of fear-mongering, lies and threats,\u201d and said he was confident Trump would work \u201cin full \u2060cooperation with any leader chosen by the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu may again depend on extremist leaders Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to form a government.<\/p>\n

Both have faced sanctions from some Western \u200bcountries that accuse them of inciting violence against Palestinians, while Ben-Gvir\u2019s Jewish Power<\/a> party has gained support in opinion polls.<\/p>\n

Neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot has a clear path to power. If neither can \u200bform a governing coalition in the 120-seat parliament, Netanyahu could stay on as caretaker until another election is held next year.<\/p>\n

Polls open from 7am to 10pm (10am Pakistan time).<\/p>\n

<\/a>October 7 reckoning<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The election follows one of Israel\u2019s most turbulent periods since its establishment in 1948, shaped by the October 7, 2023, attacks, Israel\u2019s military assault in Gaza and deep domestic divisions over the policies \u200bof Netanyahu\u2019s extremist government.<\/p>\n

For many of Netanyahu\u2019s opponents, the election turns on accountability<\/a> for the security failures of October 7, Israel\u2019s deadliest day.<\/p>\n

Mali Hajaj, an Education Ministry employee and Eisenkot supporter, \u200bsaid \u201cthe most important thing is the establishment of a national inquiry because that\u2019s where our healing will come from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lisa Tortor said she hoped Netanyahu would go and \u201cthey can form a new government and do \u200csome of \u2060the repairing of the damage that Bibi has done for Jews all over the world and for Israel, and Israel\u2019s image.\u201d Bibi is Netanyahu\u2019s nickname.<\/p>\n

But Nof Gabay, an 18-year-old Likud supporter, rejected the idea Netanyahu was to blame for October 7 and called him \u201cthe right man for the state of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNetanyahu managed the war in the best possible way,\u201d Gabay said.<\/p>\n

<\/a>The wartime record<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Israel flattened much of Gaza in the offensive against Palestinians and killed 74,000 \u200bpeople.<\/p>\n

Israel also dealt heavy blows to Iran-backed Hezbollah \u200bin Lebanon and traded strikes with Iran \u2060before a 12-day aerial campaign against Iranian nuclear sites in 2025 and this year\u2019s joint US-Israeli war.<\/p>\n

Eisenkot has said Israel\u2019s next government must prevent Iran from acquiring a military nuclear capability, either by force or through an \u201carrangement\u201d such as a US-backed diplomatic solution.<\/p>\n

<\/a>The coalition math<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Like nearly \u200ball Jewish-led parties in Israel, Eisenkot opposes the two-state solution that underpinned decades of peace negotiations with the Palestinians.<\/p>\n

But he has criticised \u200bJewish settler violence against \u2060Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which has surged since 2023 and strained Israel\u2019s ties with Western states, and opposes Netanyahu\u2019s radical coalition partners Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.<\/p>\n

In some bastions of Likud<\/a> support, disenchanted voters have been going door to door to turn voters against Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

Some have turned away from Netanyahu as he battles corruption charges he denies in a long-running criminal trial.<\/p>\n

A high turnout among \u2060voters from Israel\u2019s Arab \u200bminority<\/a>, Israeli by citizenship but Palestinian by heritage, could help nudge Israel\u2019s complex coalition arithmetic in favour of \u200bEisenkot.<\/p>\n

Though Eisenkot has ruled out partnering with Arab parties, citing a lack of shared values, analysts see a scenario where they prop up a minority government he leads in order to ensure Netanyahu is removed from office.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy expectation \u200bis that we will have only a slight majority either way. No landslide,\u201d said Israeli political analyst Amotz Asa-El of the Shalom Hartman Institute.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Radical Israeli regime leader Benjamin Netanyahu faces a fight for political survival in Israel\u2019s election on Tuesday, with voters weighing his leadership after the Gaza carnage, war with Iran, and Israel\u2019s deepening international isolation. Yet Netanyahu, Israel\u2019s longest-serving leader with 19 years in office, remains a formidable survivor, with nationalist politics increasingly \u200centrenched and Israel\u2019s fragmented system potentially leaving him best placed to form a government. Opinion polls show a close race between Netanyahu\u2019s Likud party and its radical allies and a rival alliance led by Gadi Eisenkot, a former…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}