Israelis begin to imagine a post-Netanyahu world
Dina Kraft — August 10, 2026
Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent NJN's views and policy positions.
In Israel this summer it feels like every attempt to make plans ends with the same sentence: “Well, see you at (fill in the blank time and place) if there’s not war with Iran again.”
Almost three years into a multi-front war with ceasefires that fade in and out, the level of uncertainty Israelis and their neighbors live with every day is staggering, whether it’s looking at the sky in Israel, wondering if it will be soon darkened by ballistic missiles, mourning the deaths of soldiers killed in Lebanon (and fearing news of more), or divining when and where Israel will next strike Gaza. In July, Israeli strikes killed 152 Palestinians in Gaza, according to United Nations and Gaza Health Ministry figures, 57 of whom, the Israeli army says, were Hamas combatants.
Late last Saturday, after Israelis went to sleep thinking another major U.S. attack on Iran might be imminent (to be followed by retaliatory strikes and, in turn, Israel under resumed attack), President Donald Trump pulled back – again. He wanted renewed talks to ink a deal and to manage the crisis over cargo traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
Then, over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to outright reject the latest iteration of Trump’s Gaza peace plan, saying Israel’s army forces would not budge from Gaza “until Hamas is genuinely disarmed.” Israel has inched deeper into Gaza from the “yellow line” that separates the Hamas-controlled part of Gaza from the section under Israeli control.
Add the sweltering, record-setting heat – and the election fever that infects a country still recovering from the trauma of October 7, present in the faces of the dead stickered on train station and bus stop walls. Both left and right are calling the October 27 showdown Israel’s most fateful vote ever.
Former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot’s party has soared in the polls from just six seats when it was launched, to 23 seats now – competitive with Netanyahu’s Likud Party.
Polls also show Eisenkot commanding a larger bloc to form a ruling coalition. According to the latest combined polls, the Netanyahu bloc has 51 seats to Eisenkot’s 59. A coalition must secure at least 61 seats out of the Knesset’s total of 120 seats. That means the support of an Arab party may be the lynchpin in securing a coalition – something Netanyahu has dismissed out of hand. His supporters are ratcheting up the arguably racist and fear-mongering spin machine to claim that Eisenkot will do just that. To date, Eisenkot has kept his options open, saying he favors a “Zionist” majority in the government but not ruling out working with Arab parties.
A possible game-changer for the center-left block under Eisenkot has emerged with the possibility that Yoav Segalovitz, a Jewish lawmaker and former senior police official, might join Ra’am, Israel’s most moderate Arab party.
The party is led by Mansour Abbas, who made history in 2021 when his became the first Arab party to join a ruling coalition, the “Change Government” that ruled for a year and a half before Netanyahu returned to power in December 2022, leading Israel’s most right-wing and religious coalition in the country’s history.
Ra’am’s place in the coalition seemed to shatter a taboo until the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack against Israel spiked Israeli fear and distrust of Palestinians, including those that are citizens of Israel. The stories of bravery of Arab citizens of Israel who saved Jewish lives on October 7, the fact that Arab Israelis were among those taken hostage and killed in captivity in Gaza, the Bedouin soldiers who served and who were killed in the war since – all this has been overshadowed.
The election campaign has boiled down to being for or against Netanyahu. Among the parties, established and just founded, that would oust Netanyahu, there is infighting. All but ignored is anything that will move the needle on the Israeli-Palestinian front, discussion of how to move forward in Gaza, continued settlement building in the West Bank, what to do with overtures for peacemaking from Lebanon or Syria, or the seeming new normal of a war of attrition with Iran.
Also absent is any talk about the failing education system, including a teacher shortage or the many indicators that people with higher incomes have left Israel over the past three years – the biggest emigration waves since the country was founded. How Israel should best rebuild its relationship with the West, with its reputation in the gutter, gets scant attention.
For Israelis exhausted by war and uncertainty, election campaign promises and divisiveness co-mingle this summer with a determination to live fully: Family Shabbat dinners, packed cafés, bars, beaches, and hiking trails – and the weddings of former hostages – all persist.
Among both left and some elements of the right, there seems to be a shift in looking forward towards a possible future without Netanyahu and his current coalition partners. Haaretz, a left-wing news site, has recently been publishing the message that may resonate beyond its readers: “It’s possible.”
Dina Kraft is a journalist, podcaster and the co-author of the New York Times bestseller, My Friend Anne Frank, together with Hannah Pick-Goslar. She is a creator of the podcast Groundwork, about activists working in Israel and Palestine, and was formerly the opinion editor of Haaretz English.
