No Palestinian state even without Netanyahu: what an opposition victory would change in policy toward the Palestinians

Israel will hold parliamentary elections on October 27, three years after Hamas's massacre of October 7, 2023, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may now be closer to defeat than at any point in his long career. His main challenger is former Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, whose party, Yashar (Straight), is currently the strongest in Israel according to polls compiled by The New Arab.

A foreign observer might easily assume that Israel's policy toward the Palestinians would change radically once Netanyahu is gone. However, a Reuters analysis and several other sources consistently show that the change would be felt more in tone, methods and the relationship with the United States than in substance, since neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot supports a two-state solution, and among the most important opposition leaders only one considers it a viable path.

According to the average calculated from the past seven weeks' polls compiled by The New Arab, in the 120-seat Knesset, Netanyahu's camp — that is, Likud, Itamar Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power, Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism, and the two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism — can expect a combined 51 seats. That is ten short of the 61 needed for a majority, but the opposition bloc forming around Eisenkot stands at exactly the same level. Besides Yashar, this includes the joint list of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, called Security (Yahad), Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party, and Yair Golan's Democrats. On average, Yashar leads with 22 seats, with Likud second at 21. One of the most recent polls, conducted after Donald Trump's public backing of Netanyahu, measured a 55–51 opposition lead, meaning that the American president's support has not yet tipped the balance toward Likud. On September 26, the opposition parties pledged in a joint statement not to attack one another during the campaign and to form a government together after the election; although they have not named an official candidate for prime minister, everyone expects it to be Eisenkot. Benny Gantz's party fell below the electoral threshold, so Gantz withdrew on Monday, and his moderate voters are expected to bolster the opposition instead. The two Arab lists, the Joint List and Ra'am, could together win 13–14 seats, meaning they could easily become the deciding factor, but most leaders of the Jewish-led opposition have already ruled out governing with them.

Between the two main rivals there is barely any difference on the question of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu declared in a speech last year that 'there will never be a Palestinian state,' because this land belongs to Israel. In a recent interview, Eisenkot called the 'two states for two peoples' principle a mistake, and according to an Al Jazeera summary, he considers Palestinian statehood a 'delusion' — both want Israel to control the entire territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which in practice rules out the UN-backed two-state solution. Their allies are no more moderate: Bennett calls himself 'more right-wing' than Netanyahu, rejects a Palestinian state and supports settlement construction, although he has criticized settler attacks on Palestinians. Lieberman wants to annex Area C, which makes up about 60 percent of the West Bank, and hand over the rest to Jordan. Only Golan supports a version of the two-state solution, which he calls 'responsible separation': under this plan, the Palestinian state would be fully demilitarized, while the Jordan Valley would remain under Israeli security control.

Israeli public opinion is no more open either. According to Pew's September poll, only 17 percent of Israelis believe peaceful coexistence with an independent Palestinian state is possible, while an August survey by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that 38 percent of Jewish Israelis would support annexing the entire West Bank. This rejection cannot be understood without October 7: that day Hamas killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took more than two hundred hostage, and since then a large part of Israeli society has viewed a Palestinian state as a security risk.

The most noticeable difference would appear in the West Bank. Under Israel's most right-wing government in history, settlements — considered illegal by nearly the entire international community — have expanded at an unprecedented pace, unauthorized outposts, illegal even under Israeli law, have proliferated, and extremist settlers have attacked Palestinian villages more frequently and more violently. Eisenkot supports settlement construction, but believes it must be 'lawful,' meaning he would dismantle unauthorized outposts, and he also opposes the government's E1 plan, which would split the West Bank in two and cut it off from East Jerusalem. In an August interview with Israel Hayom, Eisenkot also accused the two far-right ministers, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, of undermining Israel's international legitimacy, while Golan is demanding a tougher crackdown on settler violence. That is no small matter, since the current government has not merely tolerated settler violence but, through National Security Minister Ben-Gvir, has often actively enabled it. Finance Minister Smotrich denies the existence of the Palestinian people and wants settlements in Gaza, while Ben-Gvir is demanding the annexation of Gaza. If Netanyahu stays in power, nothing will change on the Palestinian question — or if it does, it will only get worse.

On Gaza, the difference between the two camps is even smaller. Both Netanyahu and Eisenkot demand the disarmament of Hamas and its removal from power, and both would resume the war if Hamas refuses to lay down its weapons. There is nothing surprising in this, since Israel has the right to defend itself against an organization that openly calls for its destruction and has remained armed despite the ceasefire in place since last autumn. Despite the ceasefire brokered by the United States last year, the Israeli military controls more than half of Gaza and carries out strikes almost daily. According to Gaza's health authorities, nearly 1,500 Palestinians have died since the ceasefire, and more than 74,000 in total since the start of the war.

Netanyahu rejected Trump's July roadmap, under which Hamas would hand over its weapons to a US-backed Palestinian body, Israel would gradually withdraw, and reconstruction would begin. According to Netanyahu, there will be neither withdrawal nor reconstruction until Hamas is completely disarmed. He also supports what he calls the 'voluntary emigration' of Gazans to other countries, although he denies wanting to force them out. Eisenkot, by contrast, does not propose relocating Gazans, and criticizes Netanyahu's 'total victory' program. In his view, Israel should have focused on neutralizing Hamas and then transformed Gaza through a long process. He accepts the American peace plan, but only once Hamas is fully disarmed, and promised Channel 7 that as prime minister he would end Hamas's rule over Gaza within 18 months. Eisenkot's words carry weight because he himself has made a sacrifice in the war: his son, Gal, was killed in Gaza in December 2023.

Accordingly, the expectations of Palestinian and international analysts are muted. 'Palestinians should not expect a fundamental change in Israeli policy if Netanyahu's camp loses power,' Samer Jaber, a researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London, told Al Jazeera. Amjad Iraqi, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, says that at most one can now speak of damage mitigation, not a radical turnaround, while Ehab Jabareen believes a new government would be more responsive to American pressure but would maintain control over the Palestinians, only changing how it exercises, justifies and manages that control. Swedish researcher Anders Persson warns that a fragile anti-Netanyahu coalition would also be harder for Israel's Western allies to pressure, since they would always fear it could quickly collapse and bring Netanyahu back. The most likely changes are therefore tangible but limited: an opposition government could suspend the E1 plan, crack down on settler violence, and make aid delivery and reconstruction in Gaza more predictable.

Even that should not be dismissed, since a government in which Ben-Gvir is not in charge of the police and Smotrich is not in charge of West Bank settlements would in itself reduce the violence against Palestinian villages and Israel's international isolation. However, the two-state solution has now been almost entirely pushed out of the mainstream of Israeli politics, and no single election will change that overnight. The stakes are therefore less about that than about whether Israel finds its way back to the rule of law, responsible military leadership and cooperation with its Western allies, or continues to be led by a coalition whose ministers openly talk about annexing Gaza and expelling the Palestinians. Israelis will give their answer to this question on Tuesday, but it seems that the decision could easily be complicated by the mandates of the Arab parties or by another months-long stalemate.

Ugar