Explaining Israel's elections: Ten scenarios Israelis should prepare for in 2026 - opinion

When I first voted in an Israeli election as an 18-year-old student 30 years ago last Friday, I remember experiencing some culture shock.

That culture shock was even greater since I come from Chicago, where there was actually only one party, the Democratic Party, whose powerful mayors Richard J. Daley and his son Richard M. Daley ran the city for a combined 43 years.

What was also a shock for me was how seriously voters took elections here. In that fateful 1996 election, turnout was almost 80%. In the last election for mayor of Chicago, only a pitiful 35.85% bothered casting ballots, early voting included. (And it being Chicago, half those people were dead. And the other half voted twice.)

Here are 10 possible election scenarios, in no particular order, for armchair Israel advocates to get ready to explain around the world:

No one knows whether this will happen, but if it does, there is no doubt that the international community will question why Israeli voters keep returning a prime minister whose relationships with world leaders outside the White House are not what they used to be.

It doesn’t matter if it would be Naftali Bennett, Gadi Eisenkot, or someone else. If anyone other than Netanyahu forms a government, it would be a huge opportunity to improve Israel’s image that must be taken advantage of immediately.

From that moment onward, anything Israel did in the war that the world did not like was done by “Netanyahu,” and anything the world appreciated was done by “Israel.”

Can the “everything was Bibi’s fault” card be played effectively? There are examples in world history where a change in power improved a country’s image overnight and examples where the transfer was mishandled and didn’t end up helping at all.

Whoever is in a hasbara (public diplomacy) position representing Israel must start getting ready for this scenario immediately.

Itamar Ben-Gvir stood aside and let Bezalel Smotrich head the combined list of their parties in the last election, even though Ben-Gvir was already more popular. Following the Oct. 7 massacre, Israelis moved to the Right, and this will inevitably result in a boost for the most right-wing party.

If Otzma Yehudit gets 10 – or even 15 – seats, does that mean a large portion of Israelis are racist? No. It just means Oct. 7 was traumatizing, Smotrich did not present an intriguing alternative, and young Sephardim shifted from Shas because 67-year-old Arye Deri lost some of his charisma.

If Arab parties do not win the 10 seats in the Knesset that they have now, does that mean Israelis are racist?

Still no. It just means the four Arab parties did not unite in the smartest way to attract their voters, due to the arrogance of their leaders and technical differences between the parties that are not worth explaining.

So if we aren’t racist, are we misogynist? This will be a tough one, because it really is inexcusable.

We used to counter this by saying that we had a female Supreme Court president, but we can’t do that anymore. How long can we keep using Golda Meir for hasbara?

All we can say is that we’ll try to fix this next time.

The international community sees us as caring most about the geopolitical issues that make news around the world. But this election could be waged over the issue of equal service for Israelis when there are manpower shortages during war.

This could result in both haredi (ultra-Orthodox) and anti-haredi parties gaining support as security and economic issues are relegated to the sidelines.

Are Israelis so upset with their leaders following Oct. 7 that they will be willing to give double-digit mandates to a new party you have never heard of and that isn’t even being tested in the polls you see on TV?

Check out El Hadegel, a party of determined young activists that is banking on this scenario by putting no current politicians on its list. And the pro-marijuana Green Leaf is always there for protest votes.

I apologize if I cause nightmares by putting this here, but we all know it could happen, as it did in 1973. After Oct. 7, no one can rule out surprises anymore.

The decision being made as this is written about whether to move up the election from its set date of October 27 to a few days or weeks earlier may sound irrelevant, but it will determine whether Netanyahu, who was born October 21, 1949, will be 76 or 77 on Election Day.

Could he be forced to quit the race for health reasons, leaving his party unprepared? If it happened in America, it could happen here. Could Netanyahu decide to leave on his own while he is still healthy? Extremely unlikely.

Sorry to say it, but this may be the most likely scenario out of all 10.

Does this mean our political system is screwed up? No, it just means personality politics have come to the forefront, which makes the Knesset more divisive than had the focus been on policy issues, in which compromises are more palatable.

Get ready to explain this, because there could be five races again with no coalition formed, like we had before, and we might end up staying in election mode for quite some time.