Israel’s election campaign lacks substance, fresh leadership, and vision - opinion

Looking back at the coming-to-a-close Israeli election campaign, it can be summarized as sleepy and disappointing.

Sleepy, because the tough-it-out and raucous campaigning that characterized previous Israeli election rounds has been absent.

Almost no party has sought to block roads or spark physical clashes with rivals. There are none of the drum-beating demonstrations and die-hard, overwrought rhetoric that Israel suffered in the heydays of the judicial reform and haredi (ultra-Orthodox) military draft debates; and thinking farther back, during struggles over the Oslo Accords and disengagement from Gaza.

I had feared that this year’s election campaign would be marked by violence, so such sleepiness is good.

Perhaps it’s exhaustion in a society still under the shadow of war; perhaps this is evidence of maturity and restraint. Perhaps it’s a function of social media as a central political battle zone, where discourse is indeed vitriolic and scary. Whatever the case, this election campaign has not boiled over, and that is a blessed reality.

It’s also probable that this election campaign has not ignited or excited the masses because the candidates are, well, boring.

The Likud is once again offering the Israeli public a chance to vote for Benjamin Netanyahu. He may be successful and still indispensable; he may be a failure and past his sell-by date, but he is nothing new.

The so-called “change camp” is not offering much fresher produce either, only some more Oslo-era military generals like Gadi Eisenkot (who are as responsible for the failures of October 7 as is Netanyahu), as well as cynical politicians that have hung around Israeli politics for too long like Avigdor Liberman and Yair Lapid.

Anybody who hoped that the long wars Israel has fought over the past three years would kindle a revolution in Israeli politics, a renaissance in which a fresh crop of brave and ideologically motivated leaders would breathe hope and inspiration into Israeli politics – well, this election is not that moment.

Neither is this election the People of Israel’s moment, the “coming together” centrist-nationalist moment, which might have been hoped for. None of the middle-of-the-road leaders promising national unity who threw their hats into the ring this time have skyrocketed in the polls. Ofer Winter, Yoaz Hendel, and others remain in the doldrums.

WHAT DISAPPOINTS me about this election campaign is that nobody is discussing policy; not national security and foreign affairs policy, not economic and social policy, nothing of substance.

Instead, the campaign has been personal and superficial, nasty and negative. We are told only that Netanyahu is strong while Eisenkot is weak. Netanyahu is experienced, while Eisenkot is untutored. Conversely, we are told that Netanyahu is a dictator, while Eisenkot is a democrat. Netanyahu is corrupt, while Eisenkot is honest, etc.

But what about real policies on core, critical issues of our day? Yes, we know that Netanyahu hopes to dismantle the regime in Tehran and work with US President Donald Trump to finish off Iran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. He is right that Israel needs strategic continuity in confronting Iran, and this is a pivotal point in his favor.

Gadi Eisenkot said that he too will work with the US to confront Iran, and that he will eliminate Hamas in Gaza within 18 months – unlike Netanyahu, who has not done so over three years. Nice and correct aspirations.

Beyond this, however, neither leader has offered specificity on a broad range of issues that will hit Israel in the coming months.

Will Netanyahu and/or Eisenkot mistakenly withdraw under American and international pressures from the security zones in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria that the IDF has established; or might they maintain Israel’s newly declared forward strategic posture without flinching and hew to Israel’s aggressive military approach of constantly interdicting emerging threats over the borders?

Well, we don’t know, because neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot nor any of the wannabe candidates for prime minister of Israel have spoken on these matters during the current election campaign.

Again, all we are told by the candidates is that their rival is crooked or weak, while actual or potential policy is blurred under the piles of mutual delegitimization and denigration.

Will Netanyahu and/or Eisenkot strengthen Israeli settlement in critical parts of Judea and Samaria, including strategic hills in Areas A and B, and continue to develop the E1 area on the eastern edge of Jerusalem; or unilaterally withdraw Israeli settlers from significant sections of Judea and Samaria? How are they going to handle threatened sanctions from European and other countries relating to Israeli settlement policy?

Again, we don’t know. Aside from radicals like Yair Golan (who would tear all settlements down) and Itamar Ben-Gvir (who would expel all Palestinians and resettle Jews in Gaza), none of the main candidates for prime minister have clear policies here.

Will Netanyahu and/or Eisenkot seek new ways of strengthening Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority and allow the PA to assume responsibility for Gaza; or prepare the IDF for escalated confrontation with hostile armies including PA troops and terrorist groups in the West Bank, ensuring that Israel is not caught off-guard again by an October 7-scale surprise assault?

Will either Israeli leader be stupid enough to bend to international pressures for Palestinian elections in Judea and Samaria, which would bring Hamas and other bad actors into power, whitewashed under the rubric of a supposedly fresh technocratic Palestinian government?

What about the defense budget and keeping Israel’s economy solvent? How is Israel going to afford development of an independent defense-industrial base with indigenous manufacturing of weapons and munitions to the tune of NIS 500 billion or more over the next decade?

Just how high will the Israeli income tax rate spike in 2027, and how deep will the cuts need to be in government spending on education, health, and social services?

Well, we don’t know. The Israeli election campaign has sidestepped discussion of these important matters.

Netanyahu’s outgoing government has staked out pathways forward regarding military buildup, but the consequent economic picture ain’t pretty, and Netanyahu’s approach toward the PA is unclear.

Eisenkot has avoided taking a position on these matters or any other key strategic-economic issue. Again, all we are told is that he is “yashar” (honest) – which is the name of his party.

How about tackling the Gaza-ification of the Negev, where Bedouin mafia gangs basically run their own country, where every house is flush with weapons and drugs, and where smuggling using airborne drones of dangerous contraband to/from Gaza, Egypt, and Jordan (including military strike drones) is the principal driver of the economy?

How come the outgoing nationalist government of Netanyahu made so little progress in curbing this escalating disaster, and what might Eisenkot do differently?

And how about countering the hegemonic advances of the radical Islamist Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Syrian satrap, the former ISIS terrorist Ahmed al-Sharaa? Does Israel have a strategy here? Netanyahu/Eisenkot, hello?

Does Israel have a real strategy for bringing about significant haredi military draft, or just wild rhetorical commitments to bending the haredi Israeli community into submission?

What would Netanyahu do differently in this regard in a next term in office – given his umbilical cord connection to the old, retrograde haredi parties, and what realistic alternative approach might Eisenkot adopt? I have not heard any serious discussion of how to crack this oh-so-painful and central issue.

Too bad none of the leading Israeli candidates for prime minister have commented on the wise and brave, solid proposals for the combination of Torah study and national/military service put forward by the new Haredi Public party – a party which I hope will be the surprise success of this election.

All in all, this election campaign has been substandard. I certainly do not view it as the big inflexion point in Israeli life and politics that many were expecting or hoping for.

That moment, I believe, will soon come, and Israel will be blessed with dramatic recovery and redemption.

Israel will yet elect a new, younger generation of bright and believing, capable and courageous, leaders to take the reins of state – some of them the fearless heroes of Israel’s recent wars and the equally heroic civil society leaders of the past three years.

I eagerly await the day when the current crop of politicians will have passed – and that means everybody from Netanyahu to Eisenkot, and Naftali Bennett to Yitzhak Goldknopf. Wait for the 2028 or 2030 elections.

The writer is managing senior fellow at the Jerusalem-based Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy. The views expressed here are his own. His diplomatic, defense, political, and Jewish world columns over the past 30 years are at davidmweinberg.com