Israel holding first national vote since the Hamas-led attack

Tel Aviv — Polls opened Tuesday morning in Israel for one of the country’s most significant elections in its history. Voters now face a familiar question: Should Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, stay in power?

Nearly every recent election has been a referendum on Netanyahu. This time, many Israelis say the choice is more consequential than ever: not only about who will lead the country, but about where it is heading.

It is the first national vote since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, the deadliest security failure in Israel’s history, and the wars that followed in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, which have mobilized much of the country and subsequently deepened Israel’s international isolation.

For many voters, this is the first chance to pass judgment on the leadership that presided over October 7 failures, to decide who should lead the country in conflict and who should carry the burden of increased military service.

Political landscape and key contenders

Israelis vote for party lists, not individual candidates. In a society divided by nationality, religion, ethnicity and ideology, that produces a crowded field.

Dozens of lists register each cycle, but only those that pass a 3.25% vote threshold win seats and enter the 120-seat Knesset, Israel’s parliament. On Monday, 36 parties were in play.

Polls suggest 11 to 13 parties will meet the bar; seats are allocated through a proportional representation system.

The two largest parties are Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud and Yashar, a new centrist party led by Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief of staff who has emerged as his principal challenger.

The latest Channel 12 opinion poll puts Eisenkot first with 23 seats, ahead of the Likud with 21, though other pollsters differ. On the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14, Likud is projected to take 30 seats and Eisenkot about 20. In head-to-head matchups about who is better suited to be prime minister, Eisenkot has led Netanyahu by a steady margin.

Campaign issues and crypto proposal

In a country that has been through years of war, security and accountability are powerful electoral forces. But opinion polls suggest the cost of living is also a leading concern for many voters – particularly for younger ones.

Despite these figures, the economy has not been a central theme in the campaign topic – until this weekend, when Netanyahu moved it to the top of the agenda. In an interview to Channel 10 focused on the economy, Netanyahu addressed the wave of international condemnation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and said Israel should prepare for possible international banking sanctions by developing “an economy that can circumvent them.” He said crypto currency and blockchain are being considered, and he had requested a plan to deal with it.

The interview sparked harsh criticism of Netanyahu by economists, including a rare rebuke from the Bank of Israel, who publicly rejected the idea, which said that “cryptocurrencies cannot serve as a means of circumventing sanctions.”

Netanyahu’s main rivals portrayed his proposal as evidence he expects Israel to become more isolated. Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu’s main challenger, mocked the idea as “BibiCoin” and called it a “threat to national security,” accusing Netanyahu of planning to “dismantle the Israeli economy for generations ahead.”