Netanyahu's Long Tenure Faces Vote as Blocs Run Even

Israeli voters go to the polls Tuesday with surveys showing the pro-Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu camps running close, a division that has displaced the traditional left-right split. Benjamin Netanyahu first became prime minister three decades ago and has occupied the post for 19 of the last 30 years. The Knesset's 120 seats will determine whether he continues.

Gadi Eisenkot, the opposition's leading challenger and a former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, campaigned this week in Modi'in, between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. He entered politics four years ago and leads Yashar, a name meaning straight or direct. Eisenkot proposes US-style term limits for prime ministers, saying "because power corrupts." His party's supporters described his plain manner as useful. Noa Sadeh, 56, said she was tired of people "who know how to talk" and wanted someone "who will do the doing part."

The bloc opposing Netanyahu includes Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, former prime ministers from the nationalist right who once worked with him before breaking away. On the far right, Yishai Fleisher of Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party told voters in Bet Shemesh that Netanyahu tends to drift left and needs pulling toward the right, calling for more settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, a ministry for the "voluntary" departure of Palestinians, the death penalty and more weapons for Jewish civilians.

Netanyahu's own campaign has framed the choice around identity. His current posters set Yamin, the right, against Falastin, Palestine, placing opposition leaders alongside heads of two parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up about a fifth of the population. The final weeks have turned on whether anti-Netanyahu Jewish parties, forecast to outpoll his bloc without reaching a Knesset majority, would depend on mainly Arab parties. Pro-Netanyahu media, including Channel 14, have pressed that line.

Channel 14's Yinon Magal called Eisenkot a Moroccan "monkey" this week. Speakers at the Modi'in rally raised the remark; Eisenkot did not. Admirers called it restraint, critics called it a failure to grasp the contest.

Netanyahu's record includes the 7 October 2023 massacres at the Nova festival and southern kibbutzim, the deadliest attack in Israel's history, which occurred while he was prime minister. A war in Gaza has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, a third of whom Israel says were Hamas combatants, and Hamas remains in place. Iran's nuclear program was not destroyed as promised. He also faces fallout from an attempt to curb the supreme court, the Qatargate affair involving close aides, and an ongoing corruption trial. Oded Levi, who voted for Netanyahu in 2022 but attended the Eisenkot rally, said whoever was prime minister then "is responsible."

Netanyahu's durability rests on a base built over three decades that has held even after reports he received credible warnings of an attack and did not act. His allies say army and intelligence chiefs kept him uninformed, a claim outside analysts call unfounded. He is also viewed as skilled at building coalitions, and many expect him to outmaneuver rivals in negotiations after the vote.

Opposition hopes partly rest on Israelis abroad. Liberal, secular expatriates are flying home to vote, a group pollsters do not measure, and their ballots could matter if the result turns on one of the Knesset's 120 seats. On Thursday, a state ceremony marked the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin; Netanyahu stayed away and sent a low-ranking minister. Yair Golan, who leads the Democrats and is a former general, said he was optimistic and hoped opposition leaders could agree on a regional strategic process for long-term security, avoiding the term "peace process." A video circulated this week showing young Israelis at a Negev music festival singing Shir LaShalom, the song Rabin performed before he was shot 31 years ago. Flights home have filled.