Polls opened at 8am. (6 a.m. GMT) on Tuesday. All 11 contenders, worried about engaging a depleted electorate, have launched a strong last-ditch campaign push to encourage voters to leave home. As with the four previous elections since 2019, Tuesday’s poll is largely a one-issue vote on whether the scandal-plagued Netanyahu is fit for office. Final polls released Friday showed the Israeli public is once again divided, with neither the pro- or anti-Netanyahu camps projected to win a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. If the polls are correct, Israel is headed for an unprecedented sixth election next year. But a surge in popularity for Netanyahu’s new partners, the far-right Religious Zionist party, may propel the Likud party leader to a narrow victory. The leading Religious Zionist candidate, Itamar Ben-Gvir – a former follower of the banned Kach terror group – has pledged to support legislation that would change the legal code, helping Netanyahu avoid a conviction in his corruption trial. As a senior figure in a right-wing coalition government, he would also press for the expulsion of Israel’s “faithless” Palestinian citizens, who make up 20% of the country’s population. Ben-Gvir’s rise as a major political figure has alarmed the Israeli mainstream as well as international allies: both the US and the UAE have reportedly warned the Likud that giving ministerial roles to Religious Zionists would damage bilateral relations . Netanyahu, however, has said that such a choice cannot be made by outsiders. Writing in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper on Tuesday, columnist Nahum Barnea warned that a narrow right-wing coalition would threaten Israel’s future. “Netanyahu was nurtured [Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the slate’s leader] and he persuaded them to run together because he regarded them as the donkey of the messiah: he is the messiah, and they will do his bidding. He may soon discover that they are the messiah, and he is their ass… This same combination has given rise to fascist movements in Europe,” he wrote. Caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid party, along with smaller left-wing parties, also urged voters to block Netanyahu’s return. “This is the election [a choice] between the future and the past. So go out and vote today for the future of our children, for the future of our country,” he told reporters after voting in his upscale Tel Aviv neighborhood. Lapid was the architect of the “government of change,” a broad coalition of eight parties that came together to oust Netanyahu from power in June 2021, but collapsed a year later due to infighting. In Israel’s fragmented politics, no party has won a parliamentary majority and coalition building is essential to governing. Israelis have until 22:00 (8pm GMT) to vote, after which complex horse-trading that could last for days will begin. After the votes are counted, the parties have almost three months to form a government. If they fail, Israel will be headed for another election.
