Israel’s October 2026 elections produced a striking paradox. After three years of devastating wars, the failures surrounding 7 October, growing international isolation and deep domestic divisions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing bloc has lost its parliamentary majority. Yet Likud remains the largest party, and Netanyahu’s electoral performance was considerably stronger than many had anticipated.

According to the final count published by the Central Elections Committee on 29 October, Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 seats, compared with 48 for the Jewish-led opposition and a historic 19 for Arab parties; official certification is due on 4 November. This leaves 67 seats outside Netanyahu’s bloc, opening several possibilities for political change. However, the result should not be interpreted as an ideological shift towards the left. Much of the opposition consists of security-oriented centrists, nationalists and right-leaning liberals who explicitly distance themselves from Social Democracy.

Instead, the election demonstrates the resilience of Israel’s identity-based politics. Electoral outcomes are shaped by three interconnected factors: the political identities comprising each camp, the size of its potential electorate and its capacity to mobilise supporters. This dynamic helps explain both Netanyahu’s resilience and the limitations of Israel’s social-democratic movement.

The campaign: familiar issues, established identities

The Jewish-led opposition’s campaign centred on four issues: accountability for the 7 October security failure, the defence of democratic institutions, military conscription for ultra-Orthodox men and national security. Israel’s deteriorating international standing also featured, particularly among liberal voters. These issues mobilised opposition to Netanyahu but did not produce a unified alternative political vision. Yashar, founded by former Israel Defence Forces chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid’s B’Yachad, Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beytenu and Yair Golan’s Democrats represented different political traditions, united primarily by their rejection of the prime minister.

Netanyahu’s coalition, meanwhile, continued to frame the election in terms of security, Jewish national identity and the perceived dangers of an alternative government. Consequently, electoral competition focused heavily on motivating existing constituencies to participate.

National turnout reached 77.9 per cent, compared with 70.6 per cent in 2022, the highest level since 1999. Arab turnout is estimated at around 77 per cent, compared with 53.2 per cent in 2022, and the two Arab-led lists together received nearly 840,000 votes, some 64 per cent more than in 2022. These changes in participation, alongside party mergers and the electoral threshold, significantly influenced parliamentary representation. They do not, by themselves, establish how many voters changed political camps.

The most revealing mobilisation occurred on election day. As reports of high Arab turnout emerged, Netanyahu intensified appeals to right-wing voters, warning that an alternative government would depend on Arab representatives. His social media campaign, amplified by traditional media coverage of rising Arab turnout throughout the day, turned reports of Arab voting into a call to action that mobilised Netanyahu supporters. This recalled Netanyahu’s 2015 election-day warnings about Arab participation. By linking fears about Palestinians and national security to the electoral influence of Arab citizens, the campaign framed another community’s democratic participation as a reason for its own supporters to mobilise. The precise electoral effect cannot be independently measured. Nevertheless, the strategy illustrates how collective identity and perceived threats can become powerful instruments of political mobilisation.

Class, religion and political loyalty

Socioeconomic voting patterns further demonstrate the relationship between political identity and electoral behaviour. Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics ranks every local authority on a socioeconomic scale from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest), based on income, employment, education and living standards. According to a Ynet analysis based on approximately 70.7 per cent of counted votes, parties opposing Netanyahu received 71.7 per cent in relatively affluent Jewish localities in clusters 7-8. In clusters 5-6, Netanyahu’s bloc received 51.3 per cent. In the poorest Jewish localities, clusters 1-2, support for his bloc reached approximately 92 per cent, with most votes going to ultra-Orthodox parties rather than Likud. These figures describe localities rather than individuals and exclude Arab communities, whose inclusion would substantially change the socioeconomic picture. Nevertheless, they reveal how class, religiosity and political affiliation intersect.

For European Social Democrats, the contradiction is particularly striking. Israel’s relatively affluent communities disproportionately support liberal opposition parties, while many poorer Jewish constituencies remain loyal to religious and nationalist movements. Kiryat Shmona illustrates this resilience. Following prolonged evacuation, infrastructure destruction and severe economic disruption during the war, Likud still received 48.6 per cent of the locally counted votes, compared with 49.5 per cent in 2022. Turnout rose slightly, although ballots cast elsewhere by displaced residents were not fully included. This does not imply satisfaction with government performance. Rather, it shows that severe material hardship does not automatically translate into political realignment.

For the Israeli left, the challenge is historical. Labour, once the country’s dominant political movement and architect of many welfare institutions, gradually lost support among Mizrahi, traditional and peripheral communities, many of which associated it with the former Ashkenazi establishment. The left’s difficulty is therefore not simply convincing voters that government policies have failed. It is convincing communities that historically mistrust it that Social Democracy can represent their identity, interests and security.

The Democrats: electoral recovery without expansion

The Democrats, formed through the merger of Labour and Meretz under Yair Golan, won eight seats, doubling Labour’s four seats in 2022, when Meretz failed to cross the electoral threshold. However, the combined Labour-Meretz vote share in 2022 was approximately 6.85 per cent, compared with 6.44 per cent for the Democrats in 2026. Their absolute vote rose by roughly 12 per cent, to about 366,000, reflecting higher participation, but their share of the electorate did not expand. The merger successfully prevented wasted votes and consolidated the existing progressive electorate. Yet it did not generate a substantial new constituency.

The Democrats campaigned on democratic institutions, judicial independence, civil liberties, public services, economic concerns and opposition to West Bank annexation. Golan’s military background also helped challenge perceptions of the left as lacking security credibility. Nevertheless, the party’s limited reach reflects two structural weaknesses: its difficulty rebuilding support among lower-income, traditional Jewish communities, and its limited electoral appeal among Palestinian citizens, who predominantly support Arab-led parties.

Nor can Arab parties automatically be categorised as progressive. Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, originates in the Islamic Movement, from which it formally separated in July 2026; it maintains socially conservative positions and prioritises pragmatic political cooperation. The Joint List encompasses diverse ideological currents, including the Jewish-Arab socialist Hadash and Palestinian nationalist parties.

The Democrats therefore remain a relatively small party within a broader opposition that is not predominantly progressive. Their increased parliamentary representation is an organisational achievement, but not evidence of a substantial revival of social-democratic electoral support.

The missing democratic narrative

The opposition’s most consequential strategic weakness may have been its failure to articulate a convincing democratic narrative that included Arab political participation. For months, it was evident that replacing Netanyahu could require cooperation with Arab parties. Yet most Jewish-led opposition leaders continued to reject such arrangements, insisting on a government based on a Zionist majority.

Golan explicitly supported Arab participation in government, distinguishing the Democrats from their opposition partners. However, even the Democrats did not make Jewish-Arab democratic partnership the central organising message of their campaign. The broader opposition therefore entered the election without explaining how cooperation with Palestinian citizens could become a legitimate basis for political change rather than merely an electoral necessity. This omission matters because the 19 Arab seats create possibilities for alternative parliamentary arrangements without requiring ideological uniformity.

Social Democrats, right-leaning liberals and socially conservative Arab politicians need not agree on economic redistribution, religion or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to recognise one another as legitimate political representatives. A democratic discourse centred on equal citizenship, institutional accountability and government serving all Israelis could offer common ground beyond traditional ideological divisions. Instead, Netanyahu’s longstanding framing of Arab parties as illegitimate governing partners continues to influence much of the opposition.

The central contradiction is that the opposition succeeded in mobilising against Netanyahu without establishing a shared understanding of who could legitimately participate in replacing him. For Social Democrats, this is more than a coalition problem. It concerns whether democratic equality can become a political identity that connects communities beyond the traditional left.

Electoral integrity and political legitimacy

The election also raised important questions concerning fair participation. In September, the Central Elections Committee disqualified Ra’am and the Joint List, a decision that the Supreme Court unanimously overturned on 2 October. Civil-rights organisations subsequently reported voting delays and missing Arabic ballot papers in Arab communities. Following the election, Likud alleged widespread fraud involving Arab voters, claims that police said lacked investigative or intelligence-based support.

Individual suspected vote-buying incidents remain under investigation. Separately, the chair of the Central Elections Committee asked the Shin Bet to investigate unspecified allegations of foreign funding. Neither establishes systematic electoral manipulation or foreign interference. These developments highlight the importance of distinguishing documented problems, allegations requiring investigation and unsupported claims that may undermine confidence in minority participation. The democratic question extends beyond the right to vote: whether Palestinian citizens can translate parliamentary representation into meaningful political influence.

Political scenarios: risks for social democracy

Three political scenarios remain possible.

A broad unity government involving Netanyahu and parts of the opposition could preserve his political influence while marginalising the Democrats. Such an arrangement might reduce reliance on far-right partners without necessarily changing policy towards Palestinians.

Failed negotiations could trigger another election. Netanyahu would remain caretaker prime minister, while the opposition would face uncertainty over whether its exceptionally high turnout, particularly among Arab voters, could be repeated. The Democrats, whose gains primarily reflected consolidation rather than expansion of vote share, would face similar uncertainty.

A third possibility is an opposition-led government, potentially supported by Arab parties. Such an arrangement would represent a significant development in political inclusion. It could also take a more limited form: a temporary bloc built around a narrow democratic agenda, such as a state commission of inquiry into 7 October, term limits for the prime minister and measures against the consolidation of executive power. Even if short-lived, suc a bloc could leave a lasting mark on the political system and shape the terms on which the next election is fought. Its members also have a clear interest in acting on the current parliamentary arithmetic: the opposition knows that this result, and the exceptional turnout behind it, would be difficult to repeat.

The durability of any opposition-led arrangement would nevertheless depend on cooperation among parties divided over security, religion and the Palestinian question. Domestic disputes or renewed escalation involving Gaza, Lebanon or Iran could test its cohesion and potentially lead to another election.

These scenarios are not predictions. Their chances of success and implications would depend on political negotiations and future events. Nevertheless, each illustrates the vulnerabilities of a social-democratic party with limited parliamentary strength within a fragmented political landscape.

Implications for the European Union

For the EU, the election presents possibilities for renewed engagement but also important limitations. An Eisenkot-led government or a broader centrist coalition could improve diplomatic dialogue and reduce confrontation with European institutions. Nevertheless, much of the Jewish-led opposition shares elements of Israel’s existing security consensus, limiting expectations of major changes regarding Palestinian statehood, settlements or Gaza.

A Netanyahu-led government would suggest greater policy continuity. For European Social Democrats, improved diplomatic relations should therefore be distinguished from substantive progress on democratic equality, international law and Palestinian rights.

The election also opens an opportunity for European Social Democrats. They can state the EU’s demands on the Palestinian territories clearly, on settlements, annexation and Gaza, while supporting the Democrats and the Arab parties as partners in a shared opposition bloc. Joining Jewish and Palestinian citizens aound equal citizenship, democratic institutions and a different policy towards the Palestinians, such a bloc would form the core of a social democratic camp in Israeli politics, even if its members do not a agree on every economic or social question. Alongside these demands, the EU can present a positive and credible direction for Isreal: a future of closer partnership and cooperation that it is ready to support. Offering Israelis in the social democratic camp a concrete picture of where this path leads, and showing that Europe stands behind it, would strengthen their case at home and give voters a reasons to choose it.

Conclusion: beyond opposition to Netanyahu

The election has produced a parliamentary recovery for the Democrats and unprecedented mobilisation among Palestinian citizens. Yet it has not fundamentally transformed the political identities shaping Israeli electoral behaviour. For the social-democratic left, rebuilding its influence requires more than electoral mergers or demonstrations of Netanyahu’s failures. It requires developing credibility among lower-income and peripheral Jewish communities while building political partnerships with Palestinian citizens.

The election demonstrates that democratic discourse can reach beyond the traditional left. But translating that potential into political change requires a shared vision of equal citizenship and legitimate participation. The central paradox is that identity-based mobilisation helped produce a parliamentary majority opposing Netanyahu, while the political boundaries sustained by those same identities continue to constrain the possibilities for change.

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