Upcoming Israeli Elections: Will Netanyahu's Expected Departure Change Policies or Just Faces?

As Israeli elections approach, the same question resurfaces for Palestinians: Can Benjamin Netanyahu's departure lead to a real change in Israeli policy towards Palestinians, or will the change be limited to individuals without affecting the core of the Israeli political project? This question seems more urgent today with talk of early elections and the rise of figures like Gabi Ashkenazi and Naftali Bennett, or opposition alliances seeking to end the Netanyahu era. However, reading the Israeli scene beyond personalization leads to a different conclusion: the crisis in Israel is not solely Netanyahu's crisis, but a structural crisis in the Israeli political system, which is increasingly moving towards the national and religious right. In recent years, Netanyahu has succeeded in reshaping the Israeli political map, not only by strengthening the right, but also by pushing his opponents to adopt more hardline positions on security and Palestinian issues. As a result, the ideological gap between the government and the opposition has narrowed on issues related to occupation, settlements, and the Palestinian state, to the point where disagreements often revolve around administrative style, foreign relations, and the management of state institutions, rather than the essence of policy towards Palestinians. Opinion polls and the political programs of major parties indicate that the majority of Zionist parties, including centrist and right-wing parties, reject a return to a political path that leads to the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state, even if they differ in the degree of expressing this or in the tools for managing the conflict. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stands out as one of Netanyahu's most prominent rivals, but viewing him as a "more moderate" candidate towards Palestinians is not based on a clear political record. Bennett was one of the Israeli politicians most opposed to the idea of a Palestinian state, and repeatedly called for imposing Israeli sovereignty over large parts of the West Bank, while granting Palestinians limited autonomy without sovereignty. Even during his premiership between 2021 and 2022, settlement activity did not stop; rather, that period witnessed continued expansion and the approval of thousands of settlement units, confirming that a change in prime minister did not mean a change in settlement policy, but only a difference in political discourse. Bennett's alliance with Yair Lapid also primarily aimed to end Netanyahu's rule rather than present a new political project regarding the Palestinian issue. If the Oslo Accords made the two-state solution the basis of the political process for three decades, the current Israeli political mood seems further away from this option. The right explicitly rejects a Palestinian state, while centrist forces treat the idea as impractical under current circumstances or conditional on security arrangements that would make Palestinian sovereignty incomplete. As for parties that clearly support the establishment of a Palestinian state, their influence within Israeli society and the Knesset has become limited, while Arab parties continue to advocate for this option without possessing the ability to impose it within ruling coalitions. Recent polls indicate a decline in Israeli Jewish support for a two-state settlement compared to previous decades, with a growing belief that the realities imposed by settlements have made its implementation more difficult. Despite these facts, with every Israeli election, a Palestinian discourse emerges that bets on Netanyahu's downfall as an entry point to improving the political situation. This optimism can be explained by several factors: First, Netanyahu's personality has become a symbol of the most hardline policies, making his departure seem like the end of an entire era, even though most of his rivals adopt similar positions on fundamental issues. Second, governments that do not include far-right religious parties may be less aggressive in their rhetoric and more keen to mend relations with the United States and European countries, which creates the impression of a possible resumption of the political process. The third factor is the natural Palestinian desire to seek any political opportunity after many years of stagnation, even if realistic indicators do not sufficiently support this optimism. However, practical experience presents a different picture. The Bennett-Lapid government, which was then described as a "government of change," witnessed continued settlement construction, continued military incursions, and no serious political process launched with the Palestinians. Therefore, a change in government was not reflected in a change in basic policies, but in the level of discourse and the nature of the relationship with the international community. The mistake many observers make is to reduce Israeli politics to the personality of the prime minister, while experience reveals that the security and military establishment, party coalitions, and social transformations within Israel all push towards policies that are difficult for any prime minister to overcome. This explains the statements of Ashkenazi, also a candidate to succeed Netanyahu, who focused in his speech to Israeli society that his program is based on continuing to strengthen settlements "in Judea and Samaria," i.e., the West Bank, with continued operations by the occupation army throughout the West Bank on a nightly basis, as he put it, to eliminate what he called "Palestinian terrorism" and ensure Israel's security. However, he also spoke of personal inclinations towards improving the Palestinian economic situation by allowing 100-150 thousand Palestinian workers to enter Israel daily, as well as helping the Palestinian Authority to survive by solving the clearing problem, even if he did not explicitly address it, but he believes that economic stability leads to security stability. In contrast, he did not propose any program related to the political path and a return to negotiations, which means that the Israeli mind is based on a clear strategy: "no Palestinian state within the June 4, 1967 borders" since the early founders, through Rabin and Peres, and to this day. Therefore, Netanyahu's potential departure may change the form of the government, reduce internal polarization, and perhaps restore some harmony with Western allies, but it does not necessarily mean a strategic shift in the position on occupation, settlements, or the Palestinian state. However, the main concern of whoever comes after Netanyahu is to restore Israel's shattered image after the war of extermination in Gaza and the West Bank, where the false Israeli narrative was exposed and surpassed by the Palestinian narrative in image, sound, and political discourse by Palestinian analysts and thinkers and observers from Arabs and non-Arabs of the massacres and ethnic cleansing taking place in occupied Palestine. In light of the upcoming Israeli elections, it seems that the most important question is not: "Who will succeed Netanyahu?" but: "Is there still an Israeli majority willing to pay the price of a political settlement?" So far, indicators suggest that the electoral competition revolves within camps that differ in managing the conflict, but do not differ much on the continuation of security control and the refusal to make fundamental concessions to the Palestinians. Therefore, Palestinian reliance on changing individuals alone may lead to a repetition of past disappointments, unless it is based on an accurate reading of the structural transformations that have reshaped Israeli politics in the last two decades. Developments related to the recent elections indicate that the current competition focuses on leading the state and managing internal crises and war, more than on reviving the peace process or adopting a new political project towards Palestinians. * Head of the Media File in the National Popular Conference for Jerusalem