‘A magnificent equality of rights’: Israeli parties hail democratic process on Election Day

(Oct. 27, 2026 / JNS)

Ahead of the opening of polling stations nationwide on Tuesday for Israel’s election to the 26th Knesset, political parties made their final pitches to voters on issues ranging from security and diplomacy to the economy.

The Otzma Yehudit party campaign told JNS on Monday, a day before the election, that the Knesset needs a strong right-wing bloc to keep Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu true to his declared principles.

“That’s how we get the Bibi we want,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s party said, referring to the incumbent premier.

The campaign stressed the need for a Netanyahu “backed by partners who hold him to his principles, not one boxed into a weak unity government.”

Such governments “water down every commitment, deliver nothing on security, and fall apart within months,” the campaign warned.

The party said it is drawing voters who “don’t feel they have a home anymore,” including disappointed Likud and Shas voters, haredim, Russian-speaking Israelis and “Anglos,” that is native English speakers.

“Voting in a Jewish democracy is something our grandparents could only dream of,” the campaign said. It called on every citizen to vote on Tuesday “with positivity and conviction.”

Otzma Yehudit party candidate Tally Gotliv told JNS on Tuesday that the Knesset elections concern “the very character of the state of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel.”

“We live in a state that grants equal rights to all its citizens—a magnificent equality of rights. Yet, we are the State of the Jewish people,” said Gotliv, who previously served as a Knesset member for Netanyahu’s Likud Party.

Defining the state as Jewish “secures the right for Jews from anywhere in the world to immigrate to the Land of Israel,” she continued.

Gotliv said it also ensures the Jewish people’s “right to security, self-determination, national resilience and development.”

“In the face of those who seek to destroy and extinguish our existence as Jews in the Land of Israel, we shall stand firm in our identity as a strong, empowered Jewish people,” she added.

“For the sake of our children’s future, our own future, our national resilience and our security in the Land of Israel—may the Almighty be with us,” the lawmaker concluded.

Former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, who is running for the Knesset with the People of Israel party, told JNS on Monday that many Israelis are yearning for new leadership after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre.

She described the party’s members as right-wing but “not tainted by the old politics of containment.”

On security, Hassan-Nahoum said the party seeks a decisive victory in Gaza. She said the current containment policy allows 600 trucks of food to enter the Strip every day, only for them to fall into the hands of the Hamas terror group.

“We’re going to win a decisive victory by separating the population from the terrorists and encourage voluntary immigration from Gaza,” she said.

Hassan-Nahoum also serves as the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s special envoy for trade and innovation. She previously hosted “The Quad” on JNS TV, a panel show featuring outspoken, influential women discussing Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Responding to calls for the party to withdraw from the race because it might fail to pass the electoral threshold, Hassan-Nahoum said the current government wants to keep its monopoly on the political right.

The People of Israel party, led by former Israel Defense Forces Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter, could provide additional seats for a government led by Netanyahu if it crosses the 3.25% electoral threshold.

Winter initially pledged to recommend Netanyahu for prime minister, but questioned that commitment on Oct. 21, clarifying: “I’m part of the right-wing camp, and I’m not saying now that I’ll move to the other side.”

Israel’s two political blocs are deadlocked and leading the Jewish state toward a second round of elections, Reservists-New Economic Party chairman Yoaz Hendel warned on Monday, less than 24 hours before voting opened.

“The only way out is to form a Zionist government,” he told JNS.

Such a coalition would exclude “anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox parties” and Arab parties “that do not recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization,” Hendel said.

The Reservists-New Economic Party’s key objectives are universal military conscription and lowering the cost of living, he said. “We believe that those who serve should also be the ones leading the country.”

On Netanyahu, Hendel said the party has its “own position,” adding, “He is not the central issue—he is not what matters most.”

Israel faces an “existential problem” unless haredi children are taught core subjects and are inducted into national service, the Haredi Public Party told JNS on Monday.

Nearly 33% of the Jewish state’s first graders are in ultra-Orthodox school systems, the party noted.

Without core curriculum subjects “that can help them earn a viable living,” more than a third of the country will soon be “told what to do by extremists,” it warned.

The party said it is the only one able to bring the change needed to the haredi community, “to take more responsibility for their part in Israel’s future.”

“We aren’t promising to do the change after we get elected; we are the change,” said the party, adding that it represents “tens of thousands of haredim and other Israelis.”

The Haredi Public party held parlor meetings on Monday night, and its candidates will be out across the country on Tuesday urging people to vote, it said.

Yisrael Beiteinu faction chairman Oded Forer told JNS on Monday that the Knesset elections are a chance to build a society that is “more united, just and resilient.”

The vote will decide whether the Jewish state becomes a nation where everyone shares the burden, he said, referring to the debate over military conscription of haredi men.

The alternative, he said, is a country where “those who serve, fight and make sacrifices continue to pay the price while draft evaders remain exempt from responsibility.”

Forer called the elections “an opportunity to restore trust between the people and their leaders,” including through a state commission of inquiry into the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, leaders taking accountability and “the healing of national divisions.”