Israel's election signals rightward shift, not change, as Gaza war dominates campaign

Benjamin Netanyahu stood before Israel in late September with a stark message: enemies were plotting an attack before the October 27 election. He offered no evidence for the claim, but quickly pivoted to something he could point to—recent Israeli military operations in Gaza, where he said troops had killed more than a hundred militants in recent weeks. The connection he drew between external threats, the coming vote, and national security was deliberate. Analysts say it forms the backbone of his re-election strategy: only Netanyahu can protect Israelis from the dangers surrounding them, a pitch he has refined even as critics point to his alleged failures on October 7, 2023, and his inability to secure the swift release of hostages taken that day.

Three years have passed since the Hamas-led attacks killed 1,139 people in Israel and triggered the war in Gaza, where Israeli operations have since killed more than 74,000 Palestinians. In that span, the conflict has become inseparable from Israeli domestic politics, and the country's political center has shifted decisively rightward. Positions once considered fringe—the expulsion of Palestinians, the rejection of Palestinian statehood, the expansion of Israeli territory—have moved into the mainstream. Few embody this transformation more visibly than Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right finance minister sanctioned by Western countries for his inflammatory rhetoric and policies toward Palestinians. In late September, Smotrich told an Israeli outlet that the army should "go to war" in the occupied West Bank and "do there what we did in Gaza." Days later, his electoral ally Moshe Feiglin called Gaza "the enemy, not Hamas," and argued for annexing the territory after the election. He suggested that Palestinians born tomorrow in Gaza would pose the same threat as those who attacked on October 7. These are not stray remarks from marginal figures, according to Palestinian political analyst Ahmed Najar. They represent a deliberate electoral message: Palestinians are not a people with rights but a demographic and security problem to be expelled, conquered, or destroyed.

The rightward drift has deep roots. Israeli security analyst Ahron Bregman traces the trend to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, but says it has accelerated dramatically since October 7. The far right gained particular momentum after entering Netanyahu's coalition in 2022, the most right-wing government in Israeli history. By bringing figures like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich into power, Bregman argues, Netanyahu legitimized them as influential forces. Ben-Gvir, a former convict for inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization, now holds hopes of becoming defense minister. "This is madness," Bregman said. "But that's contemporary Israel." The younger generation in particular has shifted right since the attacks, he noted. Multiple parties running in the election—both those in power and those challenging the coalition—now advocate for Palestinian expulsion from Gaza. Omar Baddar, director of Palthink for Strategic Studies, describes a political consensus to continue attacks on Gaza, where nearly 1,500 have been killed since a ceasefire last year. Israeli leaders are competing to appear more radical, he said, because "whoever's more radical is more likely to get more votes."

What constitutes "right-wing" in Israel has fundamentally changed. Palestinian analyst Ehab Jabareen notes that it now means taking a harder line on Palestinian national claims and territorial control. A large swath of Jewish Israeli politics now operates from assumptions that would have been considered right-wing a generation ago: deep suspicion of Palestinian statehood, high tolerance for prolonged military occupation, and an insistence on Jewish sovereignty as the starting point rather than one value among others. The disparity in how this plays out is stark. Sami Abu Shehadeh, a prominent Palestinian politician and Israeli citizen, was forced to withdraw from the election over his remarks about Gaza, while far-right Israeli leaders have faced no consequences for violent rhetoric against Palestinians.

Netanyahu retains political strength despite questions about his handling of October 7. Reports surfaced last month that he had received two separate warnings about an imminent Hamas attack in 2023—one from Egypt's intelligence chief and another from the UAE president. His main rivals have called him unfit based on these alleged warnings, but Netanyahu has denied being forewarned, and the reports have not significantly moved public opinion. Mairav Zonszein, an Israel-Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group, explains that Israelis still see Netanyahu as the security figure, and crucially, they see no alternative. A June survey found that the Israeli public supports its government's military and security solutions while rejecting any resolution of the Palestinian issue or end to Israeli occupation. Yet Israelis are also increasingly war-weary. Nearly 30,000 soldiers and security personnel are facing psychological trauma since the war began, according to Israel's Ministry of Defence. The rehabilitation budget has increased 88 percent over three years to 10 billion shekels, mostly for mental health treatment and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Israel has grown increasingly vocal about territorial expansion, with officials openly discussing "Greater Israel," a concept based on a biblical verse. For decades, Israel has occupied Palestinian and Syrian land with little regard for international law or neighbors' sovereignty, and has recently expanded into Lebanon. According to Najar, the "complete dehumanization" of Palestinians during the campaign presents Gaza not as a catastrophe requiring accountability but as a blueprint to be replicated elsewhere. In southern Lebanon, where Israel has carried out near-daily attacks and occupied large areas, residents expect little change regardless of the election outcome. Netanyahu's main challenger, Gadi Eisenkot, former army chief of staff and head of the Yashar party, is equally hawkish. He developed the Dahiyeh Doctrine, which calls for massive force against civilian infrastructure as a deterrent, and has criticized Netanyahu for scaling back operations in Lebanon under U.S. pressure. For Israelis traumatized by October 7, Eisenkot could fill the security void many feel, Zonszein said.

The two-state solution has effectively vanished from Israeli electoral discourse. The concept emerged from the Oslo Accords more than 30 years ago, predicated on the belief that a Palestinian state alongside Israel was essential for peace. But since negotiations began in 1993, Israeli settlers in the West Bank have grown from about 260,000 to more than 700,000, embedded deep in areas that would be needed for a contiguous Palestinian state. Bregman said the two-state solution is "currently irrelevant and likely will remain so for another decade or two, if not longer." No Israeli leader can propose it to the public after October 7, he argued. The only path to reviving it would require substantial international pressure, including severe sanctions, and a non-violent Palestinian uprising. The outright rejection of Palestinian statehood has become simply more acceptable in Israeli politics. Not a single major Jewish Zionist party now puts Palestinian statehood or a political process at the forefront of its platform. Taken together, Israel's election appears not as a demand for change but as a further entrenchment of the nationalism that surged after October 7. As Zonszein observed, there is "more and more movement towards more military force, more need for pushing the borders out of a lot of fear that another October 7 could happen."