Don’t give up on Israel. Argue with it - opinion

ByYISRAEL KLITSNERNOVEMBER 5, 2026 20:00

Somewhere in New York, Los Angeles, or London this week, a Jewish reader checked the news from Israel and sighed. Another election. Another inconclusive count. Another round of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

For many Diaspora Jews, the past three years have been exhausting. They have defended Israel on campuses, at work, and at their own Shabbat tables, often while disagreeing with its government. Now they are watching Israelis vote again and land roughly where they started. The temptation to throw up one’s hands is real.

I understand that temptation. I also think it would be a mistake.

Read closely, this election does not tell Diaspora Jews to give up on Israel. It tells them something far more interesting: Israelis are arguing fiercely – and turning out in numbers not seen in a generation – over what kind of Jewish state they want. That is not a reason to step back. It is an invitation to step in.

A semi-victory and a familiar deadlock

The numbers first, with the caveat that they are still preliminary. With the count incomplete, Likud is again the largest party, at roughly 26 seats. Netanyahu’s bloc stands at about 53, eight short of the 61 needed to govern. The opposition, led by Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar with 21 seats, sits at around 48. Arab parties hold roughly 19.

Hundreds of thousands of double-envelope ballots remain to be counted. These include votes cast by IDF soldiers, Israeli diplomats overseas, medical personnel, prisoners, and those unable to reach their polling station because of illness. Official results will follow in the coming days.

Call it a semi-victory. Likud won the most votes, but Netanyahu did not win the country.

This was the sixth election since 2019, and once again the Israeli public split almost down the middle. That pattern is no longer an accident of electoral math. It is the message. Israelis are not confused about what they want. They want different things, and they want them badly.

It was never only about Bibi

From abroad, Israeli politics can look like a referendum on one man. Netanyahu is certainly the lightning rod. But take him out of the picture, and the storm would still be there.

Israelis are divided over questions that would divide any society. The first is religion and state. A country at war, whose reservists have served hundreds of days since October 7, is still debating whether haredi (ultra-Orthodox) young men should share that burden. As someone who spent many months in reserve duty myself, I can tell you this is not an abstract policy question. It is a question of fairness that cuts to the bone.

The second is checks and balances. The attempted judicial overhaul of 2023 brought hundreds of thousands into the streets, and the underlying dispute remains unresolved. Who checks the government? What is the proper role of the courts, the attorney-general, and a state commission of inquiry? These are constitutional questions in a country without a constitution.

The third may be the deepest: competing liberal and traditional visions of the state. What does it mean for Israel to be both Jewish and democratic, and which word leads when they collide? Secular liberals, religious Zionists, haredim, traditional Jews, and Arab citizens all give different answers.

Netanyahu sits at the center of these fault lines. He did not create them, and his eventual departure will not close them.

The glass, half empty and half full

Let me be honest about the half-empty glass. We will likely get more Netanyahu. He leads the largest party, he remains prime minister until a new government is sworn in, and no one should underestimate his ability to find a path to 61. If coalition talks fail, Israel may head to a seventh election, with Netanyahu still in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Now the half-full glass. For the past four years, Netanyahu governed with one of the most hardline coalitions in Israel’s history, one in which National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich held the keys. Those keys no longer open the door on their own.

The right-wing and haredi parties together fall short of a majority. To govern, Netanyahu needs someone from outside that camp, and whoever completes the coalition would have considerable leverage to pull it toward the Center.

That is a meaningful shift. Israelis did not renew the outgoing hard-right coalition’s majority. But neither did they hand a majority to anyone else.

Israelis are taking ownership of their Zionism

The other encouraging sign is the one Diaspora Jews should watch most closely. Turnout reached 77.7%, the highest since 1999. Tens of thousands of Israelis living abroad flew home to vote. This is not a disillusioned public. It is a public that believes the outcome matters.

What Israelis are really debating is the meaning of Zionism itself. Protesters who once ceded the flag to the Right now wave it at every rally. Religious Zionists are asking what their movement owes the country beyond the settlements. Some haredim are quietly asking whether their community can remain apart from the state that protects it. Arab citizens are voting in larger numbers and asking whether they will ever be considered legitimate partners.

None of this is comfortable. All of it is healthy. A people that argues this hard about its national project is a people that still believes in it.

That is the message for Diaspora Jews, too. You do not have to defend every Israeli government or every Israeli decision to remain invested in Israel’s future. Criticize it. Challenge it. Argue with it. But stay in the argument. Israelis have not given up on Israel, and neither should you.

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