Geostrategic Media Political Commentary, Analysis, Security, Defense
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to reporters in Jerusalem, September 8, 2026 (Reuters)
For years, Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of the Israeli occupation government and leader of the right-wing Likud Party, presented himself to voters as the person capable of managing “Israel’s” relationship with the world from a position of strength.
Netanyahu relied on his close relationship with the United States, normalization agreements with Arab states, and the image of a “security man” experienced with Iran, Gaza, the West Bank, and surrounding fronts. But the recent weeks before the October 27, 2026 elections have placed these very pillars at the heart of the battle over his political future.
While Arab capitals opened channels with potential rivals, U.S. President Donald Trump kept his distance from granting him clear electoral endorsement. The story of an Emirati warning that preceded Operation Al-Aqsa Flood brought the security failure file back to the forefront, while Britain and Western partners moved toward measures against settlement.
Facing these pressures, Netanyahu and his allies are pushing a narrative based on the claim that external forces want to bring down the right, alongside settlement and security steps that the coalition seeks to use to regain voters contested between Likud and more hardline parties.
Capitals Open Post-Netanyahu Channels
The Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post revealed on September 3, based on two informed sources, that senior officials from several Arab states had made contacts with figures close to Gadi Eisenkot, former Israeli Chief of Staff and leader of the Yashar Party, to understand his orientations and prepare for the possibility of him becoming prime minister, especially his positions on relations with the Arab world.
It added that the officials maintain channels with Naftali Bennett, former Israeli prime minister and leader of the Together Party, and Yair Lapid, former prime minister and leader of Yesh Atid. One source familiar with the contacts said Arab capitals are talking with “everyone who could become prime minister.”
These contacts place the possibility of Netanyahu leaving power within Arab diplomatic calculations before the vote, especially with Eisenkot advancing in a number of September polls.
The talks so far revolve around building channels, sounding out positions, and preparing for a different political configuration, at a time when any incoming government will face heavy files with Arab states — from the future of Gaza, settlement, and annexation in the West Bank to normalization and regional arrangements after the aggression on the Strip.
In Washington, the relationship with the elections took a clearer form. The American website Axios revealed on August 14 that aides to Bennett, Eisenkot, and Lapid conveyed messages to Trump, through friends, donors, and shared political allies, asking him to remain neutral and not grant Netanyahu electoral support.
Some advisers to the U.S. president had expected Trump to endorse the prime minister after the war with Iran, but the White House occupant kept his position open and said it was better for him to stay out of the Israeli elections. The endorsement has thus remained absent so far despite the close relationship between them.
The movement of Netanyahu’s opponents toward Washington indicates their awareness of Trump’s weight in the race, while the White House’s calculations are tied to a regional agenda it wants to pursue after the elections.
Gadi Eisenkot and Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu’s most prominent rivals in the October 2026 elections
Axios reported that the U.S. administration groups Gaza arrangements, negotiations with Lebanon, security understandings with Syria, and Israeli normalization with Saudi Arabia into interlinked files, and seeks to shield them from the impact of “Israel’s” domestic political crisis and election campaign calculations.
On September 8, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an investigation based on a new book by journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval and interviews with dozens of people. It revealed that UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan called Netanyahu about ten days before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, and warned him that “Hamas is preparing a big operation that could lead to war and bloodshed and threaten the region’s arrangements.”
The Times of Israel said it separately obtained confirmation from an Emirati source familiar with the call, while Abu Dhabi officially limited itself to indicating that communication channels and information exchange operate through appropriate channels. Netanyahu’s office denied receiving the warning.
The Haaretz investigation links the warning to an indirect channel operating during 2023 between figures in Gaza, Hamas, and Palestinian mediators, through which signals arrived speaking of an “earthquake” or a big surprise. Here Mohammed Dahlan appears, the former Palestinian leader residing in the UAE and close to its ruling circles.
Israeli Channel 12 reported in the days following the attack, quoting a person close to Dahlan, that warnings were conveyed to the Israelis without response.
After the new details were published, the newspaper Israel Hayom quoted Palestinian and Gulf sources estimating that Dahlan was the source or the link that helped bring them out, given his position in the UAE, his Palestinian networks, and his contacts with Gaza.
The story quickly turned into an electoral weapon. Eisenkot demanded an investigation and linked it to Netanyahu’s responsibility for the warnings that preceded October 7, while Bennett said the report’s content was true and held the prime minister responsible for the failure.
Netanyahu responded by describing the story as a lie with political timing, threatened to sue Haaretz, and demanded an investigation of the journalists. The issue brought back to his campaign one of the most dangerous questions: how much the political level knew before the attack and how it dealt with the indicators that preceded it.
The file becomes more dangerous given the nature of the rival rising against Netanyahu. Eisenkot is fighting from a military background as former Chief of Staff and makes accountability, competence, and trust central elements in his discourse.
Eitan Shamir, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, said Eisenkot’s strength rests on his personal image, military experience, and what he called “his family’s sacrifices during the war,” while retaining hawkish security positions toward Lebanon and the Palestinians. This allows him to attack Netanyahu’s record from within the security file that has long been one of the Likud leader’s most prominent strengths.
Netanyahu’s Coalition Collides with Outside Arrangements
The calculations of foreign capitals go beyond Netanyahu himself to the nature of the coalition governing with him. The Trump administration’s Gaza arrangements depend on moving to a phase that includes disarming Hamas, a technocratic Palestinian administration, international stabilization arrangements, redeployment of occupation forces, and a reconstruction path.
For his part, the prime minister’s survival depends on Bezalel Smotrich, finance minister and leader of the Religious Zionism Party, who controls a large part of the settlement file within the Defense Ministry, and also Itamar Ben-Gvir, national security minister and leader of the Jewish Power Party.
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have made rejection of withdrawals from Gaza and pushing toward settlement and the displacement of Palestinians key elements in their political projects.
A senior official in the Peace Council, the framework sponsored by the Trump administration to follow up on Gaza arrangements, told the Times of Israel that Netanyahu’s cooperation with the American plan has declined sharply since the election campaign began, and that Washington expects to restore its ability to exert pressure after the elections, regardless of the winner’s identity.
This places Gaza decisions during the weeks before the vote under pressure from competition within the right, where any step involving withdrawal or a settlement could become material used by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir against Likud.
In the West Bank, the contradiction appears more sharply. The UAE warned since September 2025 that annexation or steps leading to it represent a “red line” that could undermine the Abraham Accords normalization, and specifically linked the warning to the E1 settlement project east of Jerusalem.
In a later meeting with Netanyahu, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, deputy prime minister and UAE foreign minister, pressed toward supporting Trump’s Gaza plan and stopping annexation steps, considering the continuation of this path a burden on existing normalization and on chances to expand it in the Arab world.
These concerns intersect with Washington’s calculations in Saudi Arabia, where the Trump administration seeks to link a long-term strategic and nuclear partnership with Riyadh to a normalization path with “Israel,” while the Kingdom insists on a credible path toward a Palestinian state.
The continued expansion in E1, de facto annexation, and settler crimes put Netanyahu’s government in confrontation with a broader American and Arab goal, especially as Smotrich expanded during the government’s life his institutional influence over West Bank administration and pushed toward legalizing more settlement construction.
A Star of David illuminated above an Israeli settlement site near Ramallah on August 14, 2026 (Reuters)
Britain moved on September 8 to measures targeting settlement activity. A British official told reporters the following day that their scope could be expanded or eased according to the policies of the occupation government that takes power after the elections.
The Jerusalem Post said “Israel” gave London, Paris, and Berlin assurances that it would not advance new steps in the E1 project before the vote, then issued a tender whose deadline ends about a week before the vote — timing that entered into the reasons that pushed the British government to toughen its position.
The complexity extends to Syria and Lebanon, where the White House places Gaza arrangements, Israeli-Lebanese negotiations, the security understanding with Syria, and Saudi normalization within one agenda for the next phase. Netanyahu’s reliance on partners who can threaten his government’s survival at every withdrawal or settlement makes implementing these files more difficult during an election campaign in which concessions to Washington or Arab capitals become material for bidding within the right.
The rivals’ own programs limit the scope of change that capitals can expect after the elections. Bennett, Lapid, and Eisenkot criticized the ceasefire with Lebanon that Trump pushed in the spring.
Bennett opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state, while Eisenkot avoids placing the two-state solution at the heart of his program and defends a wide margin for military action in Lebanon.
A poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute showed that about three-quarters of Israeli Jews support some form of West Bank annexation, placing any next government within a hardline political environment toward the Palestinians.
The interest of some outside circles in another government is linked to its expected composition and its ability to manage relations and implement understandings. Dalia Scheindlin, political adviser and Israeli pollster and writer for Haaretz, believes a government after Netanyahu might ease confrontation with institutions and repair part of the damaged diplomatic relations, while expecting limited change in policy toward the Palestinians.
Nimrod Novik, former envoy to Israeli President Shimon Peres and analyst in Israeli-Palestinian affairs, believes Netanyahu’s acceptance of external compromises before the vote threatens the “complete victory” narrative and exposes him to a clash with his right-wing partners, raising the cost of understanding with him during the campaign.
The reading of the difference between the two possible governments extended to the markets. JPMorgan, one of the largest American investment banks, estimated on August 27 the probability of an opposition led by Eisenkot winning at about 55% in the base scenario, and likely a 2–3% rise in the shekel in that case with a decline in institutional fears, versus a possible 3% drop if Netanyahu wins again.
The bank linked the expected difference to relations with Western allies, judicial reform, and policies in the West Bank and Gaza, bringing the identity of the next government into the political risk calculations of international financial institutions.
External Pressure Between Weakening Netanyahu and Mobilizing the Right
Alongside the expanding “post-Netanyahu” calculations, the occupation prime minister and his allies are working to rearrange the campaign agenda around security, settlement, and imposing facts. The clearest link between policy and election timing appears in the E1 project.
On August 19, the occupation authorities issued a tender to build 1,234 settlement units in seven complexes east of Jerusalem and set the bid closing about a week before the elections, in an acceleration among measures pushing toward de facto annexation of the West Bank, according to the Israeli organization Peace Now.
By September, the number of settlement outposts that the occupation authorities claim not to officially recognize reached about 340, alongside 146 Israeli-recognized settlements. During the government’s life, Smotrich oversaw the legalization of settlement projects that began without official licenses.
On September 6, the other face of competition within the right appeared when Netanyahu ordered the removal of unauthorized settlement outposts after increasing American pressure over settler attacks. Smotrich publicly objected.
Netanyahu here faces an equation combining preserving his relationship with Washington and preventing votes from moving from Likud to other lists, after making the unification of the right-wing camp and preventing wasted votes under the electoral threshold one of his campaign priorities.
In Gaza, Ben-Gvir presented in early September a written plan to displace large numbers of Palestinians outside the Strip. The British newspaper The Guardian placed it in the context of his election campaign and his attempt to consolidate his party’s position within the right. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar then said the government has no official plan for that.
This bidding shows the gap between the commitments the occupation government needs in its contacts with Washington and Arab capitals and the rhetoric Netanyahu’s partners use to attract right-wing voters.
On September 9, Netanyahu and his war minister Israel Katz penetrated areas occupied by his forces on Mount Hermon in Syria, where they spoke of continued Israeli security control over the area. The scene comes within a campaign that has made security, control, and regional adversaries main elements in its message.
“We control the entire area” — scenes from the incursion of the prime minister of the occupation state, Benjamin Netanyahu, into Syrian territory and a tour of the Mount Hermon summit.
— Noon Syria (@NoonPostSY) September 10, 2026
The Israeli website Yedioth Ahronoth monitored the rising use of Turkey and regional adversaries in Netanyahu’s election campaign. A huge billboard appeared in “Tel Aviv” including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan alongside leaders of Iran and Hezbollah and the mayor of New York, carrying a message saying these people want to defeat the current prime minister and calling on voters to prevent them.
Likud election billboard in Tel Aviv uses Erdogan and external adversaries to mobilize voters against Netanyahu’s defeat
Polls reveal the scale of risks and opportunities this battle carries for the occupation prime minister. In an indicator published by the Israel Democracy Institute, after a poll conducted between August 31 and September 3, 68% of Jews said the events of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood centrally affect their electoral choice, and 39% placed security and foreign policy among the two most important factors in their decision, rising to 47% within the right.
The relationship with the United States carries weight within Likud’s own base: 55% of Jews said it is important in choosing the party they will vote for, approaching two-thirds among Likud voters.
In the same poll, 54% of Jews saw a high probability of improper foreign influence attempts in the elections, giving the opposition space to attack Netanyahu over the deterioration of his relations with Washington, and giving him parallel space to link external pressures to attempts to influence the Israeli voter’s decision.
Sa’ar used this climate when he described the British measures as “blatant interference” in Israeli politics. The occupation government responded by closing the British consulate in East Jerusalem, distancing Britain from some Gaza arrangements, and halting its role in training Palestinian Authority forces.
Scheindlin believes these measures are likely to deepen existing polarizations more than transfer large voter blocs, as Netanyahu supporters read them as evidence of outside hostility to his government, while his opponents see them as a result of the isolation produced by the coalition’s policies.
The Peace Council official who spoke to the Times of Israel reached a similar estimate, saying that exerting pressure or imposing sanctions before the elections might help Netanyahu politically when he presents himself to the voter as the man who stood firm against America and refused to submit on the Gaza file.
Alon Pinkas, former Israeli diplomat who held positions in the Foreign Ministry and the Israeli consulate in New York, believes Netanyahu may calculate that defying Washington before the vote is less costly domestically than making concessions that allow Smotrich and Ben-Gvir to attack him from the right.
The October 7 failure remains the deepest pressure point on Netanyahu. Amotz Asa-El, political analyst at the Shalom Hartman Institute in occupied Jerusalem, said the prime minister faces an unprecedented situation in his career and that Israelis are living a historic crisis associated with his name.
Tamar Hermann, professor of political science and senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute specializing in public opinion, warns against concluding that Netanyahu’s career is over from his current situation, citing his repeated ability to regroup his camp and emerge from severe political crises.
Recent polls reflect the scale of competition. A poll conducted by the Israeli newspaper Maariv and the Lazar polling firm on September 7–8 showed Yashar, led by Eisenkot, getting 25 seats, versus 20 for Likud and 13 for Bennett’s party.
A Channel 12 poll on September 7 gave Yashar 25 seats, Likud 21, and Bennett 13, and Eisenkot led Netanyahu on the question of suitability for prime minister by 42% to 35%.
In contrast, Channel 14 gave Likud 30 seats on September 7 and then 31 two days later, versus 22 for Eisenkot, with the latter improving in the head-to-head on prime minister from 44% to 47% and Netanyahu declining from 56% to 53%.
Hence, the elections are approaching with the identity of the next government having become part of regional and international calculations linked to Gaza, the West Bank, normalization, and the relationship with Washington. With Eisenkot advancing in several polls, the outside is increasingly dealing with the possibility of the end of Netanyahu’s era as an existing political option to build on.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, is fighting the final weeks by trying to turn this climate into a battle over sovereignty and the right, investing security, settlement, and external adversaries to mobilize his base.
Thus, the outside’s influence in the elections depends on each camp’s ability to impose its narrative: those who hold Netanyahu responsible for failure and isolation, and those who see him as a leader under pressure because he refuses to retreat.
