Move to the Right... With or Without Benjamin
In Israel, elections do not always come to change the government; sometimes they come simply to reveal how much the society itself has changed. In the October 27, 2026 elections, Israelis appear to be heading to the ballot boxes not merely to choose a prime minister, but to confront a far more important question: What kind of Israel do they want after years of war, and what kind of relationship do they want with the Palestinians, their neighbors, and indeed the world?
The electoral landscape is highly fluid. Most opinion polls conducted by major polling centers three weeks before the election show a clear convergence in the prospects of both the ruling right-wing bloc and the opposition. Consequently, neither camp has yet been given a guaranteed path to the 61 seats required to form a government. In numerical terms, the polling average indicates that the opposition bloc would win 53 seats compared with 52 for Netanyahu's bloc, while the Arab parties remain at around 12 seats—a figure that cannot be ignored when calculating the parliamentary map. Their final number will depend on the level of turnout among Arab voters. The remaining three seats remain floating, depending on voter behavior and how they are distributed among the three blocs mentioned above, or whether one of the smaller parties succeeds in crossing the electoral threshold, taking into account an average margin of error of around 3%.
And so Israel appears to be heading toward an election that may end the Netanyahu era, but may not end Netanyahuism.
The Palestinian issue was never tied solely to Benjamin Netanyahu. The man became the face of an era, even if he was not its sole architect. If he exits through the door of the election, his ideas may enter through another window, wearing different clothes, speaking in a quieter language, and perhaps employing more pragmatic tools.
If Netanyahu Stays
The first scenario is the continued rule of Benjamin Netanyahu.
If that happens, Palestinians will face the possibility of continuing a policy that made Israeli security the gateway to everything, turning the Palestinian issue into a security file before treating it as the cause of a people seeking freedom and statehood.
But Netanyahu's survival would not necessarily mean a return to the Israel that existed before October 7. Israel itself has changed. The image of the man who presented himself as the master of security has been shaken, Israeli society has entered a profound crisis of confidence, while a war extending across multiple fronts has become part of everyday political life.
More dangerously, Netanyahu's far-right partners continue to push toward harsher policies toward Gaza and the West Bank. In recent weeks, calls from within his camp for the "migration" of Gaza's population have resurfaced, alongside continued settlement pressure in the West Bank.
This means that Palestinians, if a Netanyahu government continues, may face an even more difficult phase, particularly in the West Bank, where the Israeli elections themselves could become an occasion for intensifying settlement activity and establishing new facts on the ground.
Yet the paradox is that Netanyahu himself may no longer be capable of continuing in exactly the same way.
The Israel entering these elections is not the Israel that went to war in October 2023. The war has exhausted society, redefined the meaning of security, burdened the economy, and deepened political divisions.
If Netanyahu Falls
The second scenario is the opposition coming to power.
At that point, Palestinians might breathe a sigh of relief for a moment, but caution is needed before turning Netanyahu's fall into an automatic fall of his policies.
The current Israeli opposition is not a single bloc with a clear Palestinian program. It is a collection of parties and currents, some of which are united more by their rejection of Netanyahu than by a common vision for the future of the conflict.
Even Israeli and international analyses indicate that the opposition still faces difficulty formulating a comprehensive political alternative, while many of its parties continue to reject relying on Arab parties to form a majority.
And here lies one of the most important Palestinian landmines.
Netanyahu may fall, but the occupation will not fall with him.
The government may change, but the settlements will not move.
The political language may change, but the wall will remain.
The man who ruled Israel for many years may leave, but the questions in whose name he governed will remain on the table:
Who owns Jerusalem?
What are the borders of the Palestinian state?
What happens to the settlements?
What is the future of Gaza?
Who will govern the Strip?
What will become of the refugees?
And how can a viable Palestinian state be established alongside an Israeli state seeking maximum security guarantees?
Netanyahu alone does not hold the keys to these questions.
The Third Scenario: Neither Winner nor Loser
This may be the most realistic—and at the same time the most dangerous—scenario.
An election produces a fragmented parliament and gives neither camp 61 seats.
Israel then enters post-election negotiations.
Coalitions.
Withdrawals.
Defections.
Bargaining.
A unity government.
Or another election.
Election-monitoring centers have indicated that the current picture is deeply divided, and that even an opposition lead does not automatically mean it will have the ability to form a government.
This scenario could be as bad for Palestinians as a right-wing victory.
Because political paralysis in Israel does not necessarily mean a vacuum of control over the land.
On the contrary.
The West Bank, in particular, could become a field for compensating for political paralysis in Tel Aviv.
The more difficult it becomes to form a government, the more politicians may seek to present themselves as the toughest on security.
And as election day approaches, the Palestinian can sometimes become an indirect Israeli voter.
The image of an individual attack, a rocket, or a confrontation in the West Bank may be transformed into an electoral card inside Israel.
This is one of the most complex paradoxes of the conflict:
The Palestinian who has no vote in the Israeli elections may find himself more present in the Israeli electoral discourse than any Israeli candidate.
And What About the Palestinians?
This is where the most important question begins.
What will Palestinians do if the Israeli government changes?
The answer should not be to wait.
Palestinians have paid a heavy price in recent years as they have often become recipients of events rather than makers of them.
If Netanyahu remains, the Palestinian response should not simply be to wait for the worst.
And if he falls, the response should not be to wait for the best.
The future of the Palestinian cause cannot be built around the name of the Israeli prime minister.
This is a fundamental point.
Palestinians need a strategy that deals with Israel as a state, a society, and a set of institutions, rather than merely with its successive governments.
A prime minister more moderate than Netanyahu may come to power, but that does not necessarily mean he will be prepared to offer a historic solution to the Palestinian issue.
A more pragmatic government may emerge, but it may put security first and treat Palestinian statehood as a matter to be postponed.
Therefore, the real Palestinian wager must be on rebuilding the Palestinian house itself.
Gaza Will Be the Test
The Israeli elections cannot be understood separately from Gaza.
The Strip is no longer merely an Israeli security file.
It is a regional and international knot.
And every new Israeli government will face a question from which it cannot escape:
What comes after the war?
Who will govern Gaza?
Who will rebuild it?
Who will guarantee its security?
What will happen to Hamas's weapons?
How will Gaza be connected to the West Bank?
And will Gaza become a de facto separate entity, or return to a unified Palestinian framework?
These questions will be more important than the name of the new prime minister.
And if Palestinians can restore their political unity, the Israeli elections could turn from a danger into an opportunity.
But if Palestinian division persists, any Israeli government will be able to use that division as a pretext for postponing a political solution.
The West Bank... The Hardest Test
If Gaza is the open wound, the West Bank is the long war.
Settlement expansion continues, settler violence persists, and talk of annexation or the imposition of Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank remains present in Israeli politics.
Netanyahu has recently attempted to take measures against some unauthorized settlement outposts under American pressure, but this has not halted the broader expansion of settlements.
This means that the elections may produce a change in government while the map on the ground continues to change far beyond the ballot boxes.
And this is precisely where Palestinians must remain most vigilant.
Time in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not neutral.
Every passing day can add a settlement, a road, a checkpoint, or a new reality that becomes increasingly difficult to reverse.
And What About the Arab Parties...?
Arab parties inside Israel may find themselves at a historic moment.
If they remain outside the calculations of government formation, they will continue to hold a number of seats, but they will remain unable to convert electoral strength into equivalent political influence.
If, however, they manage to become part of the equation for forming a government, Israeli politics could enter a different phase.
But this would also require redefining the relationship between Palestinians inside Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
The political borders drawn by agreements and historical events have not been able to erase the unity of the Palestinian cause in Palestinian consciousness, but they have produced an extremely complex political reality.
The Election Is Not the End of the Story
In the end, Netanyahu may win.
He may lose.
His opponent may win.
Or no one may win.
Israel may wake up after the election to a new government, only to discover that the old questions are still waiting for answers.
As for the Palestinians, they should not enter the future with a mindset of waiting for the outcome of the Israeli elections as though their future were locked inside Israeli ballot boxes.
Israel will choose its government.
But Palestinians must choose their strategy.
And therein lies the opportunity.
If Palestinians succeed in rebuilding their institutions, ending the division, unifying political decision-making, restoring the PLO's role as a comprehensive framework, and formulating a realistic national program that combines rights with the capacity to achieve them, every Israeli government will find itself facing a Palestinian partner it cannot simply bypass.
But if Palestinians remain prisoners of division, replacing Netanyahu with someone else may be little more than changing the name on the door of the house.
The faces may change.
The slogans may change.
The alliances may change.
But the wall will remain where it is.
The settlements will continue their advance.
Gaza will continue to wait for reconstruction.
Jerusalem will remain suspended between history and politics.
And the Palestinian will continue to stand before a question that Israel's ballot boxes cannot answer:
When will we have our own ballot box—not to choose who governs Israel, but to choose what we want the future of Palestine to be?
And perhaps the most important lesson of the coming Israeli elections is that the future of the Palestinian cause will not be determined by the October 27 result alone.
The election may change the party sitting across the table.
But it will not relieve Palestinians of the task of sitting at that table knowing what they want.
History does not always offer opportunities twice.
And the coming Israeli election may be one of those rare moments when Palestinians can move from waiting to see what others do to shaping what they themselves want.
So do not wait for an Israeli government to fall before Palestinian change begins; begin the change, regardless of who occupies the house in Tel Aviv—with or without Benjamin.
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