As Israel entered the final month before its October 27 election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a chilling warning to share.
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Netanyahu → enter → warning
Israel’s enemies, he said on September 29, were plotting an attack on the country before the vote.
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he → say → vote
Without providing any evidence, he then quickly referred to continuing attacks by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip, where he said they had killed more than 100 “terrorists” in recent weeks.
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they → provide → weeks
That link drawn by Netanyahu – between the genocidal war on Gaza that began after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks, the upcoming elections, and Israel’s national security – was not coincidental, say analysts.
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analysts → draw → attacks
Netanyahu’s insistence that he alone can secure Israelis from a range of threats they face from across the country’s borders, they say, lies at the heart of his re-election campaign, even as his alleged failures during the attack three years ago and in securing the quick release of captives have offered his opponents ammunition.
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failures → secure → ammunition
When a Flydubai flight packed with Israeli passengers on their way from Dubai to Tel Aviv a day after his recent warning nearly crashed after a co-pilot attacked his pilot with an axe in the cockpit, Netanyahu was quick to seize on the incident to argue that he is still man for the country’s top job.
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he → pack → job
Polls suggest that he faces a stiff test in what is the first general vote since the 2023 attacks, which led to the killing of 1,139 people in Israel and triggered the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, where Israeli have attacks have since killed more than 74,000 Palestinians.
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attacks → suggest → Palestinians
Three years later, the war has become inseparable from the domestic debate over Israel’s direction while also accelerating a political shift to the right – with once-fringe positions on Palestinians now very much the mainstream view.
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positions → become → Palestinians
Few embody this transformation more than Israel’s far-right financial Minister Bezalel Smotrich, sanctioned by a number of Western countries and known for his incendiary and racist language and policies towards Palestinians.
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Few → embody → Palestinians
In one of his characteristically inflammatory statements, Smotrich told Israeli outlet Ynet late last month that the Israeli army should “go to war” in the occupied West Bank and “do there what we did in Gaza”.
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we → tell → Gaza
Less than two weeks later, Smotrich’s electoral ally Moshe Feiglin added fuel to the fire.
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ally → add → fire
“The enemy is Gaza, not Hamas”, he told the Jerusalem Post, calling for the annexation of the besieged territory after the election.
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he → tell → election
“The baby that will be born tomorrow in Gaza will do exactly the same,” he said, in reference to the 2023 attacks.
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he → bear → attacks
Palestinian political analyst Ahmed Najar said these are not “stray comments” from marginal figures but an electoral message from power-seeking politicians aimed at portraying Palestinians as “not a people with rights, but a demographic and security problem to be expelled, conquered or destroyed”.
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these → say → rights
He added: “The frightening reality is that the coming election risks becoming a competition not over whether Palestinian life should be protected, but over who can promise to erase it most aggressively.”
‘This is madness’
Following October 7, the younger generation in particular slid rightwards, said Ahron Bregman, an Israeli security analyst and senior teaching fellow at King’s College London.
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Bregman → add → London
He said the forces driving Israel to the right had been gathering for decades.
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forces → say → decades
“The trend toward the right began after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, but it has intensified dramatically since October 7,” Bregman told Al Jazeera, referring to the bloody 19-day October War, or the 1973 Arab-Israeli War – a conflict between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria.
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Bregman → begin → Egypt
More recently, the far right has been emboldened through electoral politics as part of Netanyahu’s government since 2022 – the most right-wing government in Israeli history.
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right → embolden → history
Another outspoken cabinet member alongside Smotrich is Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right provocateur who has previously been convicted of inciting racism and of supporting a terrorist organisation.
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who → convict → organisation
“Netanyahu’s greatest mistake – among many – was bringing figures like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich into his coalition,” said Bergman.
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Bergman → bring → coalition
“By doing so, he legitimised them as influential forces in Israeli politics.”
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he → do → politics
Ben-Gvir has been so cemented into Israel’s political system, he has hopes pinned on becoming the next Israeli defence minister, the analyst pointed out.
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analyst → cement → hopes
But that’s contemporary Israel,” said Bergman.
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Bergman → ’ → ?
Analysts also pointed out that several parties running, including ones that are currently in power and a number that are challenging the current coalition, all advocate for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, as one of the examples of the shift to the right.
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that → point → right
Omar Baddar, director of Palthink for Strategic Studies, said the messaging from across the Israeli political and military spectrum in the lead-up to the election shows that there is “a consensus” to continue the attacks on Gaza, where nearly 1,500 have been killed since a “ceasefire” last year.
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1,500 → say → ceasefire
“They’re using the threats to get more votes,” he said, pointing out to what he described as the radicalisation of the society.
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he → use → society
With the election approaching, added Baddar, Israeli leaders are seeking to undo one another: “Who[ever]’s more radical is more likely to get more votes.”
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’s → approach → votes
As Ehab Jabareen, a Palestinian political analyst and researcher from inside Israel, writes, “what it means to be ‘right-wing’ in Israel today is above all to take a harder line on Palestinian national claims, security and territorial control.”
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means → write → claims
He adds: “On security and the Palestinians, a large part of Jewish Israeli politics already works from assumptions that would have been treated as right-wing a generation ago: Deep suspicion of a sovereign Palestinian state, a high tolerance for prolonged military control, and a stronger insistence on Jewish sovereignty as the starting point rather than one value among others.”
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that → add → others
Observers and rights groups say the disparity is even evident in the electoral process.
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disparity → say → process
A prominent politician and Palestinian citizen of Israel, Sami Abu Shehadeh, has been forced to withdraw from the election over his remarks about the Gaza war, while Israeli far-right leaders have remained untouched despite their violent rhetoric against Palestinians.
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leaders → force → Palestinians
Netanyahu’s security credentials endure
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credentials → endure → ?
Recent polling indicates that the events of October 7 are top of mind for Israelis, who also have questions about who was responsible for the security failures of that day.
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who → indicate → day
Just last month, reports surfaced indicating that Netanyahu had received two separate warnings about an imminent Hamas attack in 2023, from Egypt’s intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel, and United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
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Netanyahu → indicate → chief
Netanyahu’s two main rivals in the race for prime minister have cited the alleged warnings to call the prime minister “unfit” to remain at the helm of the country.
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rivals → cite → country
But Netanyahu has denied suggestions that he had been forewarned about the attack, and the reports do not appear to have had a significant effect on opinion polls.
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reports → deny → polls
While October 7 represents a profound rupture in Israelis’ sense of security, public trust in the Netanyahu government had already been badly shaken by its controversial judicial overhaul, introduced when the prime minister’s current coalition first came to power, said Mairav Zonszein, an Israel-Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group based in Tel Aviv.
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Zonszein → represent → Aviv
Despite these breaches of trust, the Israeli leader retains support.
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leader → retain → support
“Israelis in general still see Netanyahu as kind of the guy on security.
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Israelis → see → security
And more to the point, they don’t really see an alternative,” Zonszein told Al Jazeera.
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Zonszein → see → Jazeera
…and 25 more, not listed.
The Aporia
