The campaign started innocuously enough, but its goal was quite clear, being the removal of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud party from power. In and of itself, this is a goal that is quite acceptable and politically normative. After all, politics is the essence of democracy, and politicians and political parties possess every right to seek to gain the public’s support and, if electorally victorious, to administer the affairs of state instead of their rivals.
However, despite some thinking that all is fair not only in love and war, but also in politics, this could be a dangerous rule to accept. Not every end justifies any means. Even in politics, rules need be followed, unless one favors the observation of China’s Mao Zedong from May 1938. In his On Protracted War, he insisted that “Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.”
The campaign has been ongoing for years, unsurprisingly, given the many years Netanyahu has been prime minister. Since assuming office in 1996, he has been Israel’s democratically elected leader on and off for 18 years. Those actors and parties opposing Netanyahu have attempted to convince the electorate that his policies are wrong, harmful, unsuccessful and damaging to the country.
Consistently losing elections, reasons had to be found for the public not believing or accepting the opposition parties’ rhetoric. Accusing voters of the Likud or right-wing parties of being ignorant and low-cultured doesn’t cut it anymore; decrying Netanyahu as a “populist” is also insufficient.
The next stage was when Roee Kibrik, director of research at the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, published a paper on January 13, 2021, about authoritarianism and ethnic supremacy in the Israeli Right. With the end of the welfare state inclined to Histadrut-style socialism, neo-liberal capitalism set in. This, then, led to a marginalization of human and civil rights, with its next stage being “Bibism” –support for the leader rather than for the rule of law and state institutions.
In the prestigious Foreign Affairs journal, Editor in Chief of Haaretz Aluf Benn published a piece on January 3, 2023, charging the Israeli right of pushing in an anti-democratic direction. He upped the ante on Netanyahu, writing that his “mission [is] making Israel into an openly racist authoritarian state.”
Israel 'tiptoes on the edge of authoritarianism'
In this newspaper, on January 12 last month, Raphael Cohen-Almagor insisted that “Israel is sliding toward authoritarianism, and elections won’t stop it.” Israel, he is sure, “tiptoes on the edge of authoritarianism.” In Haaretz, on January 24, Michael Hauser Tov published “Netanyahu’s 11 Moves Taking Israel From Democracy Toward Authoritarian Rule.” Readers were informed that since January 4, 2023, Israel has been “transitioning from democracy to an authoritarian regime.”
The next stage in the subliminal messaging can be found in a Channel 12 poll that was aired on May 23, 2025. Among the results was data indicating that 50% of respondents believe the government could cancel the scheduled vote, while only 35% consider such a move unlikely. In September last year, Naftali Bennett was quoted as saying, “nobody will be ‘allowed to postpone or disrupt’ the 2026 election.”
This paper’s Shir Perets reported on January 29 that Yair Golan of The Democrats Party declared that “Netanyahu and his government may attempt to ‘sabotage’ the upcoming elections.”
At a press briefing in the Knesset last Monday, Yair Lapid indicated he was sure a nefarious election fraud plot was being planned. The journalists were told that the opposition faces “[Justice Minister Yariv] Levin, who has no problem to falsify and lie and attempt to steal the elections.”
The academic literature informs us that there is a link between conspiracy thinking and electoral mistrust, suggesting that the former basically predicts such a mindset. And that is what all this devious campaigning rhetoric is seeking to create.
There are two main points that counter the claims that Netanyahu is an authoritarian leader and that the expected elections this year will be suspended.
The first is that, by any measurement, the period of the Mapai/David Ben-Gurion hegemonic rule in Israel, from 1948 until 1977, was very much authoritarian. Yet the state and its institutions survived. Moreover, democracy reigned.
In fact, the person libeled by Ben-Gurion as a fascist and even one possessing a “Hitlerist” character (in a letter to Haim Guri), Menachem Begin, proved to be very much a democrat during his term of office as prime minister, even achieving a peace treaty with Egypt. The country survived and continued to improve, politically, economically, and culturally.
The second point is that the elections were actually once suspended and postponed – by the Labor Party in late 1973. Instead of being conducted in October, due to the Yom Kippur War, the elections to the 8th Knesset were held on December 31 that year. And the country did not fall under authoritarian rule.
If the opposition cannot win elections based on reason, logic, and simple good argumentation, creating fantasy bogeymen is neither fair nor democratic.
The writer is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.