Declassified UK: Which shade of genocide?

Posted: 30th October 2026

Hamza Yusuf

Regular Contributor
Declassified UK

Israelis headed to the polls this week in a closely watched election, the first since the genocide in Gaza started in October 2023.

But even with turnout the highest in more than two decades, the country looks set for a political stalemate.

It takes 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats to win a majority, but with more than 90% of votes tallied, neither bloc appears close to that number. No single party has ever won an outright majority in Israel so governments are always formed through coalitions.

The election was widely seen as a referendum on prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but his Likud Party is still on track to be the largest party and his ultra-right-wing coalition appears to have outperformed expectations,currently on 53 parliamentary seats (not all votes have been counted at the time of writing).

Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu’s main challenger, leads the ‘change’ bloc, which is on course for 48 seats.

The historically marginalised Arab-led parties, Ra’am and the Joint List, had their best results, winning a combined 19 seats.Added to Eisenkot’s bloc, that gives the anti-Netanyahu camp 67 seats, comfortably past the 61 needed to govern, potentially making them kingmakers.

But while there is no shortage of fragmentation, Netanyahu and the opposition’s main leaders appear to agree on one thing: they will not govern with the Arab parties.

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These parties, led by Palestinian citizens of Israel, have offered to support an opposition-led minority government to prevent Netanyahu from returning to power. 

The Eisenkot bloc’s refusal to take a reasonable route out of the deadlock for reasons of ideology, underscores the glaring contradiction at the heart of Israel’s election: The watchword is change, but only within the framework of structural prejudice.

“It’s either the continuation of racism, the continuation of exclusion and the continuation of supremacy, or a genuine Jewish-Arab partnership” said Yousef Jabareen, head of the Joint List.

The style and substance of Eisenkot, Netanyahu and the other figures may differ and their blueprints for governing might contrast. But their positions, especially towards the Palestinians, suggest what is on offer is a change in how systematic oppression is administered, not an end to it.

Eisenkot is a former IDF chief of staff who served in Netanyahu’s war cabinet after October 7, and the architect of the Dahiyeh Doctrine, a military strategy that justifies the disproportionate force and destruction of civilian infrastructure.

He has also categorically reassured voters he will only form a Zionist government and no Palestinian state will be established on his watch.

In his would-be coalition, often referred to by commentators as the “progressive” or “liberal” camp, Naftali Bennett is a former leader of one of the main settler movements and a staunch supporter of annexation of the West Bank.

Avigdor Lieberman, who held posts in previous Netanyahu governments , has threatened to leave the coalition if it supports any of the Palestinian-led Arab parties and has repeatedly claimed there are no innocent people in Gaza.

Yair Golan, head of the Democrats, has for his part urged the opposition to form a government backed by the Arab parties. But he too has a history of hawkish stances: in October 2023, he called for the deliberate starvation of Gaza.

So as negotiations loom, what the new government in Israel looks like is an open question.

Whether Palestinians will in turn see a cessation of the genocide, ethnic cleansing, land theft and occupation, is not.

In solidarity,

Hamza.

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