Casey Babb: Israel’s ballot question is a choice between this Zionism, or that one

On Oct. 27, 2026, Israelis will head to the polls for the first time in four years, in what many are describing as the most consequential election in the country’s history. Some have even suggested that the stakes of this election are “existential.”

From intense diplomatic isolation, to major domestic issues, such as ultra-Orthodox military conscription, to an inquiry regarding the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, to highly contentious judicial reforms, Israeli voters have several major things to think about this month.

It’s true – rarely in Israel’s history has an election felt this significant. Yet beyond these topics, which dominate the headlines, there’s another matter that hangs in the balance this election – one which is not only connected to all of Israel’s most pressing electoral issues, but to the very soul of Jewish peoplehood worldwide – the future of Zionism.

It’s clear that candidates vying to be Israel’s next prime minister understand the importance of Zionism. Virtually all of them have referenced Zionism in distinct ways.

Take, for instance, Israel’s former prime minister, Naftali Bennett. He’s made Zionism a reoccurring theme of his campaign.

After announcing his merger with Yair Lapid in April, where the two political leaders formed the new Together party, he called their decision to unite the “most Zionist and patriotic act we have ever done, for the sake of our country.” Lapid echoed this, saying “We are uniting today to win the elections and to establish a Zionist government, strong and stable. A partnership between the centre and right, between religious and secular, between north and south — without draft dodging and without extremism.”

Lapid has even used Zionist language to target his opponents. In one case, for example, he suggested that should Netanyahu win again, it would actually mean the “end of Zionism.”

Gadi Eisenkot, the leader of Yashar, and the former Israeli military general who’s now leading in most polls, said last June that he planned to establish a “Zionist, unifying and worthy government.” Like Lapid, he’s also used Zionist-related language to criticize his competitors.

Earlier this month, after the Religious Zionism party released a campaign video showing chief legal representatives in the country being forcibly dragged away, Eisenkot said the party’s leader, Bezalel Smotrich is damaging “the reputation,” of all religious Zionists, despite purporting to represent them.

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman stated that there can be no place for Haredi or Arab-led parties this election, whom he’s described as “anti-Zionist.” “For me, there is no place for non-Zionist forces in the next government — neither Arab parties nor Haredi parties. They are anti-Zionist,” he said.

Others, too, like Benny Gantz and Yoav Segalovitz, have leaned on Zionism through their electoral campaigns. In an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post, Gantz said on Sept. 26 that he believes Israel “needs a broad Zionist government anchored by moderate forces.” “The purpose,” he stated, “…is to create enough political strength across the responsible Zionist centre that extremists are no longer indispensable and no longer possess veto power over Israel’s national direction.”

But invoking Zionism isn’t the same as agreeing on what it means or what direction it should take.

During a recent conversation with Free Press columnist Coleman Hughes, award-winning author Dara Horn, who has written extensively about antisemitism, stated that “nobody knows what Zionism is.” She’s right.

The anti-Zionist lynch-mob, who’ve been screaming about Zionism for years, want you to believe that Zionism is genocide, apartheid and supremacism — that it’s the most abhorrent idea in the world. Whatever it is that you loathe, and think is most toxic and destructive in this world — Zionism is that. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

All of this, the lies, the libels and the hatred, are part of a deliberate campaign to undermine Jews’ connection to Israel and to silo Jews into two camps: the good Jews who are only comfortable with Israel existing in the pages of books and Bibles, and the bad Jews, who have the audacity to believe in a free and sovereign homeland.

Then there’s the political Zionism we’ve learned about in synagogues, Jewish day schools and sleep away camps – the basic idea that Zionism is a belief in the right for Jews to live peacefully in a country of their own.

That is accurate. Of course we have that right. But that’s only part of the story.

What Zionism actually is, is a living, breathing idea – a moral scaffolding and life force – that forms part of the Jewish soul, and which is imbued in the moral ethos of Israel, its citizens and Jews across the world.

What transforms Israel from being a state for Jews into a state built upon Jewish values is, to a great extent, Zionism, its prophetic ethics, and its underlying moral virtues. It’s an energy and fortitude that turned freezing and emaciated Jews inside overcrowded cattle cars into fighter pilots, roaring over the skies of Tehran. It took collective suffering and despair and made it into a forward looking, thriving democracy, characterized by a responsibility to help others.

Zionism is the aid Israel sent to Columbia in 2026 after it was rocked by a devastating earthquake. It’s the irrigation technologies sent to drought-stricken nations in Africa and the vaccination of over a million Palestinian children. It is the epitome of social conscience. As Alana Newhouse, editor-in-chief of Tablet, has explained, Zionism has been so wondrous, powerful and successful that it’s actually “provided the world with a framework for the future.”

But Zionism in its purest and most beneficial form isn’t guaranteed, and the outcome of this next election may very well decide the direction it takes. For Israelis, and Jews in the diaspora, this means everything.

With antisemitism surging globally and Israel's moral standing under relentless attack, the answer Israelis give at the polls won’t just shape their next government, but the soul of the Jewish people

For the Jewish state, its next election will determine whether Israel remains true to its founding principles and the Zionist philosophy that led to its creation, or if it will inch towards a Zionism defined by higher walls, forever wars, and pure political survival.

To echo Gershon Baskin, columnist for the Jerusalem Post, “Jewish power without Jewish ethics is self-defeating.” Quite right. It’s one thing to face external threats that put Israeli lives at risk. It’s something else entirely to lose touch with the ideals that have made the country great and noble in the first place.

Outside Israel, that same Zionist ethos has served as a sort of spiritual lighthouse for Jews worldwide, who’ve looked to Israel as something special, something connected to their story, and perhaps above all else, something that unites them with their Tribe.

In his 1981 book, The Making of Modern Zionism, the late Israeli historian Shlomo Avineri suggested that should Israel lose touch with the version of Zionism that propelled the country forward in its formative years, it would risk severing its bonds with Jews in the diaspora. Israel, he wrote, “would lose the allegiance,” of Jews living abroad.

This it seems, is also true. According to one recent study, only 12 per cent of secular American Jews consider support for Israel to be part of their Jewish identity, while even fewer say they are “emotionally attached” to the country.

Ultimately, Israel stands at a crossroads. It can drift away from the Zionist ideas and values that made it a beacon of hope and resilience and become an increasingly isolated state, or it can return to the Zionist path it was meant to follow, serving as a model for how liberal values, ancient tradition, and progress can thrive in unison.

Choosing the first path would not mean the end of Zionism, but it would mean the end of Zionism’s best version. As the late Hebrew essayist Ahad Ha’am once wrote, “A state is not the beginning of redemption, but its test.”

Today, Zionism faces the greatest test in its history.

Three years after Oct. 7, with antisemitism surging globally and Israel’s moral standing under relentless attack, the answer Israelis give at the polls won’t just shape their next government, but the soul of the Jewish people – wherever they may be.

Dr. Casey Babb is director of The Promised Land at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, in Ottawa, and author of the forthcoming book, The Moral Case for Zionism.