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Will today’s Netanyahu speech at the UN be his last as Israeli Prime Minister?
Benjamin Netanyahu has stood at the United Nations podium more often than any Israeli leader, using the world stage to warn about the threat from Iran, defend Israel’s policies and make his case with maps and other props.
On Thursday, Netanyahu is set to deliver his 15th address to the General Assembly, where he is expected to tout Israel’s military successes against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, push back against mounting criticism of Israel and lash out at New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has called him a war criminal. His U.N. appearances have served him politically back home. But with Israelis heading to the polls on Oct. 27 and Netanyahu facing another tough reelection fight, the question hanging over his familiar appearance at the green marble podium is: Will he be back next year?
The stakes in Israel’s election
American Jews and Washington insiders have watched Israeli elections closely from afar for decades. But the Oct. 27 Knesset election may feel unusually close to home.
After years of war in Gaza and Iran, and a right-wing government in which far-right cabinet ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir have wielded significant influence, Israel’s standing in the United States has fallen sharply. Benjamin Netanyahu has become deeply unpopular among Democrats and American Jews, and many find themselves caught between a strong emotional attachment to Israel and growing discomfort with the actions of its government.
That makes this election more than the latest referendum on Netanyahu. Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is seeking a seventh term after surviving political crises that repeatedly appeared likely to end his career, most significantly after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
The election could help determine Israel’s direction after years of growing divisions over the Palestinians, the power of the religious right and Haredi parties and the future of the country’s democratic institutions. And if Netanyahu loses, a new government could try to repair Israel’s battered image in the United States, rebuild ties with Democrats and reconnect with parts of the American Jewish community — even without bringing nearly as much change in Israeli policy as some might hope.
The candidates and coalitions on the ballot
Six weeks before Israelis vote, at least 10 lists of 38 parties that submitted a slate have a viable chance of crossing the 3.25% threshold to win seats in the 120-member Knesset: The current ruling coalition, the Likud Party; the far-right Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism party; and the Haredi parties Shas and United Torah Judaism. Another Party competing for votes on the right is Amcha Yisrael, led by retired general Ofer Winter. The center-left vote is split among three parties: Yashar, headed by former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot; Beyachad, the alliance of former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid; and the left-wing Democrats, headed by former IDF major general Yair Golan. There is also Avigdor Lieberman, a headliner whose secular, nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu Party has been part of the anti-Netanyahu bloc since 2019.
The two Arab lists — the United List, a coalition of three Arab Israeli parties, and Ra’am led by Mansour Abbas — are generally counted outside either bloc. But their seats could determine who governs after the election. Ra’am, which joined the Bennett-Lapid government in 2021, has allied with Yoav Segalovitz, who formerly headed the Israel Police’s Investigations and Intelligence Division, to seek a role in a future government, while the United List has left open the possibility of supporting an opposition-led government.
Polls show neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor the parties seeking to replace him have a clear path yet to the 61 seats needed for a Knesset majority.
That leaves three possible outcomes for Oct. 27 amid a larger question being asked from Jerusalem to Washington: Will the Netanyahu era finally end? And if it does, how much would Israel actually change?
The most likely scenario: Anti-Netanyahu bloc wins — without a majority
Recent polls point to a familiar problem in Israeli politics — the kind of deadlock that paralyzed the country for nearly two years in 2019 and 2020. The Zionist parties opposed to Netanyahu could win more seats in this election than the bloc that made up the current coalition government of Likud, the religious right and Haredi parties, but still fall short of the 61 seats needed for a majority.
Eisenkot, who has emerged as Netanyahu’s chief rival, has floated a path to a government that does not require a majority in the Knesset.
He could attempt to establish a minority government while Arab lawmakers abstain during the confidence vote rather than formally joining his coalition. Eisenkot has carefully called this a “Zionist minority government,” saying he would make no deals with Arab parties. Netanyahu has made the prospect of an Eisenkot government dependent on the left and Arab parties a central campaign argument. He is betting that after the collapse of the Bennett-Lapid government in 2022 and the trauma of Oct. 7, even voters who want change may be wary of such an arrangement.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported earlier this month that Eisenkot’s campaign is concerned that some candidates on the slate could refuse to support such an arrangement, so he is considering internal measures to ensure that lawmakers who cannot support the government’s formation resign rather than break away.
But getting sworn in could dramatically transform the political landscape. Netanyahu would no longer be prime minister.
Eisenkot could then try to expand his government by attracting parties or members currently aligned with Netanyahu, consider a split-power government with Netanyahu, and if Netanyahu stepped aside after losing power, a new Likud leader might consider joining a government led by Eisenkot, Bennett or Lieberman.
Or the minority government could quickly fall apart, sending Israel to another round of elections. But this time Eisenkot would run as the incumbent prime minister, while Netanyahu would have to decide whether to try to return to power as the opposition.
Probable scenario: Netanyahu does it again
Netanyahu could outperform polls and receive enough seats to either block the opposition from forming a government or win an outright majority.
Netanyahu pulled off a surprise victory in 2015 and made a remarkable comeback in 2022 after losing power. In the last few years he has survived a long-running corruption trial and the failures of Oct. 7, which many predicted would end his political career. Instead, he’s kept his coalition together through a full four-year term.
Netanyahu is still considered the preferred candidate for prime minister by more than a third of the Israeli electorate and is dominating among voters identifying with the center-right.
In what would likely be the final term for the 76-year-old longest-serving Israeli leader, Netanyahu could seek a different legacy by moderating his tone and pursuing a unity government with Eisenkot or Bennett. But that would mean breaking campaign promises and abandoning some of the political partners who helped keep him in power. And his opponents would have to put aside years of deep distrust and disagreements – and justify the move in the name of political stability.
Possible scenario: The end of an era — but who becomes prime minister?
If Netanyahu’s bloc loses and he cannot find a way to stay in power, the election would not automatically make Eisenkot prime minister. Ending the Netanyahu era is one thing for the three opposition leaders. Deciding who replaces him is another.
Bennett and Lieberman come from different backgrounds than Eisenkot, with years of political experience and ambitions of their own. They could offer very different styles of leadership, with a dramatic change in tone and relationships but little change in policy from Netanyahu’s.
Bennett, 54, now polling as the head of the third-largest party, has done this before. After the 2021 election, his party Yamina won only seven seats. Yet the deadlocked political map allowed him to negotiate a rotation agreement with Lapid and become prime minister as head of a diverse coalition that, for the first time in Israeli history, included the participation of an Arab party.
During his short tenure as prime minister, he demonstrated calm and unity, and proved that removing Netanyahu would not automatically be interpreted as Israel moving left. He maintained good relations with former President Joe Biden and speaks fluent English. His stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — he opposes the creation of a Palestinian state and backs an aggressive approach toward Hamas — resonates with current Israeli public opinion. He also prioritizes military and civic service for all Israelis, an issue that has strained Netanyahu’s coalition and deepened tensions over exemptions for the growing Haredi population.
Lieberman, 68, may be the longest shot for prime minister, but perhaps the most experienced Israeli politician after Netanyahu. Serving in key government roles — leading the defense, finance and foreign ministries — in the past two decades, Lieberman has long warned about the dangers posed by Hamas and has criticized the government’s strategies in Gaza. In 2018, he resigned as defense minister over a ceasefire in Gaza, which he called “surrendering to terror.” His strong opposition to exemptions and subsidies benefiting the Haredi community has previously positioned him as a spoiler in earlier elections.
Recent polling puts his party at an average of eight or nine seats — enough to give Lieberman leverage in who leads the government.
After so many elections centered on whether Netanyahu could survive, this one may finally answer a different question: What does Israel look like without him?
The post Will today’s Netanyahu speech at the UN be his last as Israeli Prime Minister? appeared first on The Forward.
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Talarico blames Netanyahu, not the Israeli people, for devastation in Gaza
(JTA) — James Talarico, Texas’ Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, said he holds Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, rather than the Israeli people, responsible for civilian devastation in Gaza.
Talarico, a Texas state representative, is running neck and neck against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, in a race whose results could affect which party controls the Senate this November. Israel has been one of many sources of disagreement among the candidates, who have sparred on issues ranging from affordability to immigration to reproductive rights.
“I believe that Israel, like any nation, has a right to defend its people,” the candidate said while fielding questions on Wednesday at a CNN town hall. “But I don’t believe that Benjamin Netanyahu has a right to wage war against civilians or use collective punishment or restrict aid to civilians.”
A Texas Politics Project poll, issued by the University of Texas this week, showed Paxton trailing Talarico by 3 percentage points, with 47% to the Democrat’s 50% and a margin of error of 3.34 percentage points.
Talarico said in August that he supported stopping arms sales to the Netanyahu government and conditioning military aid “on ending the death and the destruction in Gaza and the West Bank.” He declined to call the crisis “genocide,” noting that the term is being litigated in the International Court of Justice. But he said he’d “use every bit of our nation’s diplomatic and financial leverage to protect the lives of Palestinians.”
When he was pressed further by Rabbi Holly Levin Cohn of Congregation Beth El Binah in Dallas during the town hall, Talarico stressed the importance of directing his criticisms “toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and not the Israeli people.”
Addressing Israelis’ trauma, Talarico acknowledged that the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel “was the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
Cohn pushed back on his comments regarding aid restrictions, noting Israeli support of humanitarian efforts and arguing that there’s much more going on in the country than the media may be projecting.
Talarico told the rabbi he recognized that his “words carry weight” and gave her his word that he’s “going to continue to listen to all sides of this conflict.” He also expressed hope that “we can all come together to fight for a two-state solution where we have security for Israel and we have freedom and self-determination for Palestinians.”
Talarico also gave a “shoutout” to a local rabbi, Neil Blumofe at Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin. “I spent my first year of my seminary studies learning the Hebrew scriptures from a local rabbi,” he said. “Shout out Rabbi Neil Blumofe!” Cohn grinned.
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Irish Jewish leader ‘shocked’ after hotel cancels over 70 rooms for antisemitism conference
(JTA) — DUBLIN — An Irish Jewish leader said a Dublin hotel canceled rooms reserved for European delegates after learning that they were visiting for an antisemitism conference.
Maurice Cohen, the president of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, said he booked over 70 rooms at the Herbert Park Hotel for people attending a meeting of the Special Envoys and Coordinators Combating Antisemitism (SECCA).
The envoys, who included Jewish community leaders, diplomats and government ministers from across Europe, were invited to the conference this week organized by the World Jewish Congress and the European Commission. The event was tied to Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which rotates between EU member states, and included delegates meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin. Most of the government-appointed special envoys are not themselves Jewish.
Cohen said he met with Herbert Park Hotel’s general manager in May to inspect its conference rooms and explained the purpose of the event. According to Cohen, the manager responded by asking, “Will the IDF be involved?”
That question “shocked” Cohen, he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“I said, this is about antisemitism. It’s not about Israelis, it’s not about Israel, it’s not about the IDF,” he said.
Cohen said the manager told him she had to consult with the hotel owners to determine if his booking could be accepted. The next day, he learned that the rooms were canceled without explanation. The Herbert Park Hotel did not respond to JTA requests for comment.
Cohen booked rooms for the delegates and the conference at different hotels. He described the cancellation in a speech at the SECCA meeting on Tuesday, calling it an example of “contemporary antisemitism.”
“How quickly does the word ‘Jewish’ change a conversation?” he said to the attendees. “How easily does a gathering about antisemitism become associated with the Israeli army? And how quickly can people who were welcome when they were simply 70 hotel guests become something rather different once they are known to be attending a Jewish conference?”
Yoni Wieder, Ireland’s chief rabbi, suggested that the hotel could have based its decision on fears of controversy.
“It’s possible that whoever took the decision had no objection to the conference itself,” Wieder told JTA. “They may simply have wanted to avoid the possibility of protests outside the hotel or some other backlash.”
Ireland’s government has been sharply critical of Israel. The country has recognized Palestinian statehood, barred Israeli far-right ministers from entering its borders and in July passed a law that banned imports from Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories. Martin has said that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, a charge Israel vigorously rejects. He has also condemned rising antisemitism in Ireland, which is home to about 2,200 Jews.
Herbert Park Hotel is “actually quite familiar with Jewish guests,” according to Wieder, who said that he has overseen kosher catering at the hotel.
Cohen, who has lived in Dublin all his life, said he had fond memories of the hotel. For years it was his favored site for meetings, New Year’s Eve celebrations and his mother’s birthdays through her 93rd.
“Over time the hotel became associated in my mind with friendship, celebration and my mother,” he said in his speech. “So it was strange that, many years later, the same hotel would acquire a very different place in my memory.”
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Whatever you think of Ilhan Omar, these threats are unconscionable
The Trump administration is reportedly planning to build a case to strip Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) of her citizenship and eventually deport her.
It is my hope that American Jews — even those who do not like Omar and can recite every questionable comment she has made over the past 15 years to illustrate why — will understand this as offensive and outrageous not only because they are Americans, but because they are Jews.
The Trump administration may claim that it is building a case against Omar due to paperwork (reports suggest that they are interested in whether her father listed her age as 17 on her citizenship application when she was really 18). It is similarly filing dozens of lawsuits attempting to denaturalize citizens by trying to prove they lied in the process of gaining citizenship. However, that this is happening now, ahead of the midterm elections against a sitting member of Congress, a high-profile progressive whom the president has said should “go back” to her country of origin, suggests that it is, to put it mildly, politically motivated.
Evidently, the Trump administration sees citizenship not as a right or a responsibility but as a reward, one that can be taken away if that is seen as useful to the president and his adherents. That use could be silencing political opposition or something as simple (and callous) as an opportunity to brag about the sheer number of attempted denaturalizations.
Jews, too, have found themselves on the wrong end of political denaturalization. I do not mean to compare the Trump administration to the Nazis, but the stubborn fact is that Jews were indeed stripped of their citizenship as part of a political project in Germany and elsewhere in Europe in the 1930s and 40s. And in the early 20th century in the United States, it was Jews who politicians claimed were incapable of assimilating, of ever really being a part of the United States. These arguments culminated in legislation that kept out Jews who could have found refuge here. The threat of denaturalization and the experience of perpetual otherness is a grievous part of modern Jewish history; we should be offended by its presence in our political present.
Jewish tradition as well as history encourages us to stand up to authority when that authority is wrong. Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman; Nathan yells at King David for sleeping with Bathsheba and having her husband killed; Moses famously urges Pharoah to change his oppressive ways. Even God is on the receiving end of pushback when Abraham pleads and negotiates to spare Sodom.
I do not think one needs to be Jewish to be outraged by the attempt to denaturalize Ilhan Omar. I think it is also bone-chilling as an American who believes we, including our elected officials, have the right to openly oppose our president, and I am worried as a person who thinks it would be good to continue to live in a democratic republic. And I am sure that there are Jews who will say that Omar deserves to lose her citizenship because she has said things about Israel they do not like.
But the Jewish lens through which I see this is that it is right to challenge power when it is abused, and it is wrong for the powerful to make a show of trying to cast their opponents out of the country.
The point is not whether Trump can make good on the threat to strip Omar of her citizenship and deport her, but that it is obscene to use denaturalization as punishment for being a high-profile political opponent in the first place. If he is trying to make it more dangerous to speak out while being from the “wrong” country, then the rest of us need to say that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be an American citizen.
We should do this because we are Americans and we should do this because we are Jews. We should do this because of the ways in which our American and Jewish identities bleed into one another. And, we should do this because we may not know exactly whether it is as Americans or as Jews that we know we have to protect the right to speak truth to power, but we know we need to do it all the same.
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