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9 Things to Know About Israel’s Election

By IMEU
October 19, 2026

9 Things to Know About Israel’s Election
People walk past a Likud party campaign ad showing Prime Minister Netanyahu next to an image of his rivals surrounding the leader of the United Arab List party, with the slogan "Right or Palestine.” Beni Brak, Israel, October 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty) AP

1. Israel’s quasi-constitutional Basic Laws stipulate that the right to self-determination in Israel/Palestine “is unique to the Jewish people.”

  • The “Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People” law, which is one of Israel’s quasi-constitutional Basic Laws, enshrines the superior rights and privileges that Jewish Israelis enjoy over indigenous Palestinians with Israeli citizenship and those in the occupied Palestinian territories (West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza). Among other things, it declares the right to “national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.”
  • As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained in response to criticism of the so-called “Jewish nation-state law”: “Israel is not a state of all its citizens… According to the basic nationality law we passed, Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and only it.”

2. More than 20% of Israel’s population are Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.

  • While they can hold office and be elected to the Israeli Knesset (parliament), indigenous Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, who make up about 21% of Israel’s population (approximately 2.1 million people), are fourth-class citizens in their own homeland, systematically discriminated against in almost every facet of life because they aren’t Jewish, and frequently targeted by Israeli leaders.

3. It is illegal for candidates or parties to advocate for Israel to be a state that treats all of its citizens equally, regardless of religion or ethnicity.

  • According to Israel’s electoral laws: “A party will not be registered if in one of its objectives or actions, explicitly or suggested, is one of the following: 1. The rejection of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state.”
  • Shortly before the Jewish nation-state law passed, in 2018 a bill was introduced to the Knesset by a party representing Palestinian citizens of Israel to “anchor in constitutional law the principle of equal citizenship while recognising the existence and rights of the two, Jewish and Arab, national groups living within the country.” The bill was disqualified by the Knesset presidium. In December 2018, Israel’s supreme court rejected a petition from rights groups that would have allowed the bill to be discussed by the Knesset.

4. Israeli settlers living illegally on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank can vote while indigenous Palestinians living in the same territory under Israeli military rule do not have the right to vote.

  • More than 750,000 Israeli settlers living on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank in violation of international law enjoy the full rights and privileges of Israeli citizenship, including the right to vote. Meanwhile, some three million Palestinians in the West Bank and two million in Gaza who have lived under brutal Israeli military rule since 1967 are denied the right to vote or have any say in the government that controls their lives. In total, about 30% of the people living under Israel’s control are Palestinians who cannot vote in Israeli elections.

5. The election is widely seen as a referendum on the leadership of Netanyahu, who is running for a seventh term while facing charges of corruption.

  • Netanyahu, who has been in power almost continuously since 2009 and has been elected six times since 1996, has been a central focus of the campaign, with many voters angered by his attempts to overhaul Israel’s judicial system, his handling of the October 7, 2023, attacks, and multiple corruption cases he’s facing.

6. Netanyahu’s campaign is race-baiting against Palestinians (again).

  • As with previous elections, Netanyahu’s campaign has been race-baiting against Palestinian citizens of Israel, releasing an A.I.- generated ad depicting his chief rival, Gadi Eisenkot, running past a man wearing a t-shirt that reads “Israeli unity” to embrace the leader of the United Arab List party, Mansour Abbas. Earlier in the year, he posted an A.I.- generated video showing the leaders of the Together party, Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett, transforming into two Palestinian members of the Knesset, with the caption “Taking off the masks.”

7. The campaign has been described as “Israel’s most racist election to date.”

  • In addition to Netanyahu’s anti-Palestinian race-baiting, numerous parties and candidates have been promoting plans to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank, and inside Israel, declaring they won’t form a government that includes Arabs, and trying to get parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel disqualified, with one columnist at a prominent Israeli newspaper calling it “Israel’s most racist election to date.”

8. None of the leading parties or candidates support Palestinian statehood, while all of them back the expansion of Israeli settlements and the perpetuation of Israel’s apartheid system.

  • None of the major parties or candidates for prime minister support the creation of a Palestinian state or equal rights for Palestinians in a single state and all of them support the continued expansion of settlements on occupied Palestinian land in violation of international law and the discriminatory apartheid system Israel has imposed in all of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
  • Yair Golan of The Democrats, which is considered the most moderate of the leading parties, says he supports the so-called “two-state solution” at some point in the future but “not at this time.” Instead, he backs “a process centered on separation, with security responsibility in Israel’s hands,” which amounts to Israel continuing to control and dominate Palestinians without granting them their freedom or rights. He also supports the continued expansion of large so-called settlement “blocs” that dissect the West Bank and make the creation of a territorially contiguous Palestinian state impossible. As he said in February 2026: “The settlement blocs are part of Israel… They will be, because there is no other possibility. We will strengthen settlements along the border.”

9. Israel is still committing genocide in Gaza, ethnically cleansing Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and occupying and laying waste to southern Lebanon, and it’s not a campaign issue.

  • For the past three years, Israel has been carrying out a campaign of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. This genocide and ethnic cleansing are ongoing, despite the supposed ceasefire announced in October 2025. Israel also continues to occupy a large part of southern Lebanon and to destroy Lebanese towns that the Israeli military has ethnically cleansed of their inhabitants.
  • None of this has been a focus of the campaign, except for some candidates like Defense Minister Israel Katz boasting in campaign ads about expelling Palestinians and bombing Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.

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