Dec 30th, 2022
Dec 7th, 2022
Led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud is once again fighting to keep its Knesset dominance on 17 September. In the last election on 9 April, Likud won 35 seats, the same number as its biggest rival Blue and White (Kahol Lavan). However, since Netanyahu held the position of incumbent prime minister, he was given the first chance to form a ruling coalition.
Having failed in this task, Netanyahu now hopes to improve on Likud’s April performance and assemble a more secure right-wing majority. To this end, Likud has already approved a merger with centrist party Kulanu, absorbing its four seats and bringing Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon - who broke away from Likud in 2013 – back into the fold.
Likud is also working to bring Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked into the Likud party, a move which could add as many as six seats to its April performance.
Likud is expected to once again run its campaign by attacking all opposition, using the blanket term “the left” to lambast the media, pro-Palestinian activists and any centrist or liberal political parties. To this list Netanyahu has now added former Defence Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who the prime minister accuses of blocking the formation of a right-wing government and triggering fresh elections.
Likud is also likely to play on the idea that Netanyahu has “got things done” during his time in office, highlighting US President Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognise the city as Israel’s capital and declare the Syrian Golan Heights part of Israel.
In addition, Netanyahu has tried to emphasise his drive to normalise relations with Arab and Muslim countries. Having orchestrated a number of high-profile visits to Oman, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Chad, Netanyahu will be hoping that Israeli ministers’ attendance at the upcoming “Peace and Prosperity” conference – slated to be held in Bahraini capital Manama in June - will again highlight this growing normalisation.
Prime Minister, Defence Minister, Health Minister, Aliya Minister
General Alignment: Right
Amir Ohana
Ariel Kallner
Avi Dichter
Benjamin Netanyahu Leader
David Amsalem
David Bitan
Eli Ben Dahan
Eti Atiah
Gidon Sa'ar
Gila Gamliel
Gilad Erdan
Haim Katz
Keren Barak
Keti Shitrit
May Golan
Michal Shir
Miki Zohar
Miri Regev
Nir Barkat
Ofir Akunis
Ofir Katz
Osnat Mark
Patin Mula
Sharren Haskel
Shlomo Karai
Tzachi Hanegbi
Tzipi Hotovely
Uzi Dayan
Yariv Levin
Yisrael Katz
Yoav Galant
Yoav Kish
Yuli Edelstein
Yuval Steinitz
Ze'ev Elkin
Dec 12th, 2019
Dec 11th, 2019
April’s election was the Israel Resilience (Hosen L’Yisrael) party’s first appearance, running as part of the Blue and White (Kahol Lavan) alliance with Yesh Atid. It is headed by former army Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, who also acts as Blue and White’s leader.
On domestic issues the party has vowed to “fix” the Nation-State Law, which last year declared Israel the “national home of the Jewish people”. It is thought this was a bid to win support from the Druze community, with whom Gantz’s military past might resonate.
The party’s defining manifesto pledge is to put “Israel before everything”, especially on matters of security. Gantz has advocated for a hawkish approach to the besieged Gaza Strip, boasting in his first campaign video of bombing it “back to the Stone Age”. Following Israel’s bombardment of the Strip in May, Gantz accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “surrendering” to Hamas.
On the occupied West Bank the party has been less clear, seeming to swing between advocating for disengagement and supporting illegal settlement.
This security-focused approach extends to foreign policy, with Gantz warning regional foes Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah against testing his resolve and saying “on my watch, there will be no appeasement”.
Former Chief of General Staff
General Alignment: Centre
Alon Shuster
Asaf Zamir
Avi Nissenkorn
Benny Gantz Leader
Chili Tropper
Eitan Ginzburg
Gabi Ashkenazi
Gadeer Mreeh
Gadi Yevarkan
Izhar Shay
Meirav Cohen
Michael Biton
Miki Haimovich
Moshe Ya'alon
Omer Yankelevich
Orit Farkash-Hacohen
Orly Fruman
Ram Shefa
Yoaz Hendel
Zvi Hauser
Nov 26th, 2019
Nov 4th, 2019
Headed by Yair Lapid, Yesh Atid is Israel’s main centrist party and currently holds 11 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
Yesh Atid has tried to position itself as the “only answer” to incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, which it has vehemently criticised and accused of incitement. Lapid hopes to use Netanyahu’s preoccupation with his corruption scandals against him, portraying him as self-centred and ignorant of the “rising cost of living and the waiting times in hospitals” that preoccupy Israeli voters.
Commentators have predicted that, as in the 2015 elections, Lapid will try to attract young Russian voters who no longer support Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party but who remain somewhat right-wing.
Former Finance Minister
General Alignment: Centre
Boaz Toporovsky
Elazar Stern
Idan Roll
Karin Elharrar
Meir Cohen
Mickey Levy
Ofer Shelah
Orna Barbivai
Pnina Tamano-Shata
Ram Ben Barak
Yael German
Yair Lapid Leader
Yoav Segalovitz
Yoel Razvozov
Yorai Lahav Hertzanu
Jan 14th, 2019
Formed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked in December, April’s election was the New Right’s first electoral outing. The party aimed to appeal to both secular and Orthodox voters, as opposed to the religious-Zionist camp that has traditionally supported the pair’s previous party, the Jewish Home.
However, despite hopes that the party could win as many as ten seats, in a shock defeat the New Right failed to pass the 3.25 per cent minimum threshold needed to sit in the Knesset. This was put down to misplaced confidence in Bennett and Shaked’s personal appeal and an election campaign labelled tasteless by onlookers. The party’s defeat plunged the historic allies in political oblivion, causing a seemingly irreconcilable rift between the once dynamic duo.
However, following the announcement that Israel would go to the polls again in September, reports that Bennett and Shaked were plotting their comeback quickly emerged. Whether this will materialise is, however, less certain, with Shaked rumoured to be considering a high-profile slot in Netanyahu’s Likud party.
For his part, Bennett is reportedly in discussions with Moshe Feiglin to merge New Right with the latter’s libertarian and vehemently anti-Palestinian Zehut party, which also failed to cross the threshold in April.
Education Minister
General Alignment: Right
Justice Minister
General Alignment: Right
With moments to spare before the deadline to submit their slates ahead of April’s election, Hadash (Al-Jabhah) and the Arab Movement for Renewal (Ta’al) announced that they would run together as one alliance.
Both are former parties of the Joint List - an alliance which ran in the 2015 election to ensure its four Arab-dominated parties met the minimum threshold needed to sit in the Knesset. Hadash leader Ayman Odeh vowed that this year Palestinian citizens of Israel would vote “in droves”, reclaiming the controversial phrase used against the community by incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his 2015 election campaign.
However, on election day Palestinian citizens of Israel largely stayed away from the ballot box, with some choosing to boycott the election altogether. The community recorded a historically low turnout which, combined with foul-play by Netanyahu’s Likud party, led to a disastrous result for the Arab-Israeli alliances.
Hadash-Ta’al eventually won six seats, while the other Arab-Israeli alliance Ra’am-Balad won four, three less than the 13 the Joint List secured in 2015.
Hadash-Ta’al will now be looking to learn lessons from April, with rumours of a reincarnated Joint List already beginning to surface. The parties are still likely to focus on issues specific to Palestinian citizens of Israel, including revoking the Nation-State Law, which failed to mention the community and has effectively declared them second-class citizens.
Ahmad Tibi
Aida Touma-Sliman
Ayman Odeh Leader
Osama Saadi
Yousef Jabareen
Nov 25th, 2019
Sep 25th, 2019
The National Democratic Union (Balad) and the United Arab List (Ra’am) parties announced they would run together ahead of the April election.
Faced with the dispansion of the Joint List alliance - which previously saw Israel’s four Arab-dominated parties merge to contest the 2015 election - the parties looked unlikely to meet the 3.25 per cent of the vote needed to sit in the Knesset if they decided to run alone.
The alliance eventually won four seats in April, the minimum needed to sit in the 120-seat Knesset. However, on election day Palestinian citizens of recorded a historically low turnout which, combined with foul-play by Netanyahu’s Likud party, led to a disastrous result for the Arab-Israeli alliances more broadly.
The other predominately-Arab party, Hadash-Ta’al won six seats which, together with Ra’am-Balad’s four seats, amounted to three less than the 13 the Joint List secured in 2015. As such, following the announcement that another election will now take place in September, Arab-Israeli Knesset Members (MKs) are in discussions to recreate the Joint List.
Ra’am is expected to remain popular with Palestinian Bedouin voters, most of whom live in the Negev (Naqab) desert in southern Israel, and is seen as supporting Palestinian national positions. Balad is also a nationalist party, declaring itself “an inseparable part of the Palestinian national movement.”
Abd al-Hakim Hajj Yahya
Heba Yazbak
Mansour Abbas Leader
Mtanes Shehadeh
Mar 12th, 2019
Feb 22nd, 2019
Jan 9th, 2019
Left reeling after the departure of their two biggest personalities, Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, the Jewish Home party struggled to find a voice for itself in the run up to April’s election. The party is headed by Rafi Peretz and agreed to run on a joint ticket with the right-wing National Union and Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) parties under the Union of Right Wing Parties (URWP) banner.
URWP won five seats in April and will hope to repeat its reasonable performance in September. It is expected to appeal to religious-Zionists, trying to paint itself as a home for “all of religious society and for all of Israeli society”. Jewish Home has also advocated for annexing Area C of the occupied West Bank and an expansion of illegal settlements.
Idit Salman
Moti Yogev
Rafi Peretz Leader
Feb 5th, 2019
Feb 4th, 2019
Dec 30th, 2018
Headed by controversial Knesset Member (MK) Bezalel Smotrich, the National Union has made an alliance with the Jewish Home and Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) parties to run under the Union of Right Wing Parties alliance.
The National Union is itself an alliance of fringe right-wing factions, including Tkuma, Moledet and Hatikva. These parties all see themselves as religious-Zionist and openly advocate for the annexation of all or parts of the occupied West Bank, drawing most of their support from Israel’s illegal settlers living there.
Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) is an ultra-nationalist party which joined with the Jewish Home and National Union parties to run together in April’s election under the Union of Right Wing Parties (URWP) banner.
The party holds extreme right-wing views inspired by rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach party was outlawed in Israel for incitement and racism and whose teachings inspired Baruch Goldstein’s massacre at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994.
Otzma Yehudit has advocated for expelling non-Jewish communities from Israel and a termination of the status quo agreements on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. It has also sought to challenge what it sees as legal red tape restricting Israeli soldiers’ actions, releasing a video which appears to advocate for a shoot to kill policy against Palestinians. Commentators have labelled the video as incitement and racism, calling for it to be banned.
As a result of its extreme views, other political parties lobbied for Otzma Yehudit to be banned from participating in the April election. On 17 March 2019 Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the party's leader, Michael Ben Ari, would be banned from running in the election as a result of comments he made about Palestinian citizens of Israel, which Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit previously said amount to "incitement to racism" and "calling for a violent renunciation of the Arab population's rights".
Although Ben Ari’s number two, Itamar Ben-Gvir, argued he should be allowed to move up the URWP slate and take Ben Ari’s place, this demand was refused. Since URWP only won five seats in April, Ben-Gvir did not secure a seat in the Knesset. Whether he will work to alter this prior to September’s election is as yet unclear.
A left-wing and social democratic party led by Tamar Zandberg, Meretz has used its current Knesset term to focus on a number of domestic Israeli issues. These have included women’s rights, equal rights for ethnic minorities and environmental issues.
On the question of Israel-Palestine, Meretz has been consistent in its opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and has remained committed to a two-state solution.
Meretz sought to join forces with the Israeli Labor party in order to strengthen the left-wing’s chances ahead of the April election, but Labor leader Avi Gabbay rejected Zandberg’s overtures. Given the Labor party’s dire April performance, in which it won only six seats, Meretz has once again renewed calls for cooperation in preparation for September’s election. It is also thought that Meretz will try to attract support from Palestinian citizens of Israel, who voted for the party in unprecedented numbers in April.
General Alignment: Left
Essawi Freij
Ilan Gilon
Michal Rozin
Tamar Zandberg Leader
Headed by Avi Gabbay, the Israeli Labor party struggled in the polls ahead of the April election, having dramatically ousted Tzipi Livni and her Hatnua party from the Zionist Union - an alliance of left-wing parties - in January.
This low polling translated into a disastrous result for the party, which won only six seats on 9 April, its worst ever performance. Labor party members quickly began to call for Gabbay to resign, a demand which picked up pace after it emerged in May that he had considered joining Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition as the latter scrambled for form a government.
A date has not yet been set for the Labor party’s leadership race, but young, up-and-coming candidates Stav Shaffir and Itzik Shmuli are already slated to be considering running for the position. Gabbay’s replacement will also need to consider whether to accept Meretz’s offer of joining forces to present a united left-wing front ahead of the 17 September election.
General Alignment: Left
Amir Peretz
Avi Gabbay Leader
Itzik Shmuli
Shelly Yachimovich
Stav Shaffir
Tal Russo
Jul 4th, 2019
Feb 18th, 2019
Led by Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, Shas has decided to go back to its roots for its election campaign, aiming to appeal to traditional religious voters and the Sephardic and Mizrahi (Middle Eastern Jewish) communities within Israel.
The party is running on a social justice profile, highlighting its success in reducing the price of public transport in Israel and calling for “equality between haredi, religious and secular citizens”.
Despite Deri’s best efforts to join forces with United Torah Judaism - the other ultra-Orthodox alliance that mainly represents Ashkenazi voters - no agreement has materialised, with Shas voters concerned such a move could shift the party’s priorities away from Mizrahi issues.
Minister of Interior
General Alignment: Right
Aryeh Deri Leader
David Azoulay
Meshulam Nahari
Michael Malchieli
Moshe Abutbul
Yaakov Margi
Yitzhak (Itzik) Cohen
Yoav Ben-Tzur
Jul 25th, 2018
Comprised of two ultra-Orthodox parties - Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah - United Torah Judaism (UTJ) maintained their previous alliance and ran on a joint slate during April’s election. It is expected that they will maintain this alliance ahead of 17 September.
The alliance - which is led by Israel’s Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman - had vowed to stand behind incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, recommending that he form the next government even if he is indicted for corruption.
In January, Litzman took aim at the Israel Resilience party’s Benny Gantz, accusing him of having an anti-Haredi agenda after he promised to open public transport on Shabbat and introduce a form of civil marriage in Israel.
A key campaign platform for UTJ is combatting the so-called Haredi draft law, which seeks to conscript ultra-Orthodox men into the Israeli army. UTJ are vehemently opposed to this law, a position which, combined with former Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s refusal to compromise on the bill, in May prevented Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming a government.
Israel Eichler
Meir Porush
Moshe Gafni
Uri Maklev
Yaakov Litzman Leader
Yaakov Tessler
Yakov Asher
Yitzhak Pindros
Mar 6th, 2019
Headed by Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, Kulanu is a centrist party with the slogan “only Kahlon cares”. The party is playing to its strength - the domestic economy - claiming to have lowered house prices in Israel, increased the minimum wage and launched family-orientated programmes.
Kulanu has also poked fun at its rival parties’ factionalism, in a campaign video showing key political figures as cartoons engaged in a fist fight. Kulanu claims: “When everyone is fighting everyone else, only Kahlon fights for you.” It has thus far refused to join forces with other parties in order to strengthen its chances on 9 April.
Finance Minister
General Alignment: Centre
A right-wing party led by former Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Yisrael Beiteinu launched its campaign in January by pledging to fight Hamas, which governs the besieged Gaza Strip.
Domestically, Lieberman also took aim at Israel’s ultra-Orthodox population, comparing the Haredim to Hamas with the slogan: “It doesn’t matter if you surrender to those who raise weapons [Hamas] or those who refuse to raise weapons [the Haredim]. Surrender is surrender.”
As expected, Lieberman continued to push his so-called Haredi draft law forward, refusing to soften his demands that the bill be passed without amendments. This issue ultimately prevented Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming a government after the April election, with Lieberman using the five seats secured by Yisrael Beiteinu as leverage for his demands.
Although it is possible that, by dragging Israel back to elections in September, Lieberman could be punished at the ballot box, polls conducted immediately after the Knesset dissolution in May found that, in fact, Lieberman could win as many as nine seats in September.
Former Defence Minister
General Alignment: Right
Avigdor Lieberman Leader
Eli Avidar
Evgeny Sova
Oded Forer
Yulia Malinovsky
Dec 13th, 2019
Nov 27th, 2019
Oct 31st, 2019
Oct 24th, 2019
The Zehut party is headed by Moshe Feiglin and is seen as a libertarian, right-wing Zionist party that shares its root with incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Ahead of the April election, Zehut tried to appeal to young voters who it believes are disengaged with politics and disenchanted with the old guard of Israeli politicians. As such, it stands for an amalgamation of policies, including the protection of free speech, the right to bear arms and the legalisation of cannabis.
On the question of Israel-Palestine, Zehut advocates for a one-state solution in which the whole of historic Palestine will be named Israel. Palestinians would be granted citizenship if they agree to live in and pledge their loyalty to such a state. Zehut also advocates for scrapping the Oslo Accords, using the money it claims Israel would save by doing so to incentivise Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) to emigrate.
Although Zehut was expected to do well in April, it failed to cross the 3.25 per cent minimum threshold needed to gain seats in the Knesset. However, almost immediately after it was announced that Israel will once again go to the polls in September, Feiglin reappeared from obscurity and expressed his openness to working with other fringe right-wing parties. He is reportedly speaking with leader of the New Right (Hayemin Hehadash) party, Naftali Bennett, - who also failed to cross the threshold – about a working arrangement.