For years, Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of the Israeli occupation government and leader of the right-wing Likud party, has presented himself to voters as the leader capable of managing Israel’s relations with the world from a position of strength.
Netanyahu has relied on his close relationship with the US, normalisation agreements with Arab states and his image as a “security man” seasoned by confrontations involving Iran, Gaza, the West Bank and surrounding fronts. But the final weeks before the 27 October 2026 election have placed those very pillars at the centre of the battle over his political future.
As Arab capitals opened channels with his potential rivals, US President Donald Trump held back from offering him clear electoral support. Meanwhile, reports of a UAE warning before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood brought the security failure back into focus, as Britain and Western partners moved towards measures against settlement activity.
Facing these pressures, Netanyahu and his allies are promoting a narrative that outside forces want to bring down the right. Alongside this, the coalition is pursuing settlement and security measures to win back voters for whom Likud is competing with more hardline parties.
Arab capitals open channels for a post-Netanyahu government
The Jerusalem Post reported on 3 September, citing two informed sources, that senior officials from several Arab countries had contacted people close to Gadi Eisenkot, the former Israeli army chief of staff and leader of the Yashar party. They sought to understand his positions, particularly on relations with the Arab world, and prepare for the possibility that he could become prime minister.
The newspaper added that the officials were also maintaining channels with Naftali Bennett, the former Israeli prime minister and leader of the Together party, and Yair Lapid, the former prime minister and leader of Yesh Atid. One source familiar with the contacts said Arab capitals were speaking with “anyone who could become prime minister.”
These contacts show that Arab capitals are factoring the possibility of Netanyahu leaving power into their diplomacy before the vote, particularly as Eisenkot has gained ground in several September polls.
So far, the talks have focused on opening channels, sounding out positions and preparing for a different political line-up. Any incoming government will face major issues in its relations with Arab states, from Gaza’s future, settlement expansion and annexation in the West Bank to normalisation and regional arrangements after the assault on the Strip.
In Washington, engagement over the election became more explicit. Axios reported on 14 August that aides to Bennett, Eisenkot and Lapid had sent messages to Trump through friends, donors and shared political allies, asking him to remain neutral and withhold electoral support from Netanyahu.
Some advisers to the US president had expected Trump to endorse Netanyahu after the war with Iran. But Trump left his position open and said it was better for him to stay out of the Israeli election. So far, he has offered no endorsement despite their close relationship.
The approaches to Washington by Netanyahu’s rivals indicate their awareness of Trump’s influence in the race, while the White House’s calculations are tied to the regional agenda it wants to pursue after the election.
Axios reported that the US administration is treating arrangements for Gaza, negotiations with Lebanon, security understandings with Syria and Israeli normalisation with Saudi Arabia as interconnected issues. It is seeking to shield them from Israel’s internal political crisis and electoral calculations.
On 8 September, Haaretz published an investigation based on a new book by journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval and interviews with dozens of people. It reported that UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan called Netanyahu about 10 days before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023 and warned him that “Hamas is preparing for a major action that could lead to war and bloodshed and threaten the region’s arrangements.”
The Times of Israel said it had separately obtained confirmation from a UAE source familiar with the call that it had taken place. Abu Dhabi’s official response went no further than stating that communication and information-sharing take place through the appropriate channels, while Netanyahu’s office denied receiving the warning.
The Haaretz investigation links the warning to an indirect channel that operated during 2023 between figures in Gaza, Hamas and Palestinian intermediaries. Messages passed through it referred to an “earthquake” or a major surprise. The account also features Mohammed Dahlan, a former Palestinian leader based in the UAE and close to its ruling circles.
In the days after the attack, Israel’s Channel 12 reported, citing a person close to Dahlan, that warnings had been passed to the Israelis but had received no response.
After the new details were published, Israel Hayom quoted Palestinian and Gulf sources who believed Dahlan was the source, or the intermediary who helped bring the story to light, given his position in the UAE, his Palestinian networks and his contacts in Gaza.
The story quickly became an electoral weapon. Eisenkot called for an investigation and linked it to Netanyahu’s responsibility for the warnings before 7 October. Bennett said the substance of the report was correct and held the prime minister responsible for the failure.
Netanyahu responded by calling the story a lie timed for political effect, threatening to sue Haaretz and demanding an investigation into the journalists. The issue brought one of the most damaging questions facing his campaign back into focus: how much the political leadership knew before the attack and how it handled the warning signs.
The issue poses an even greater political danger given the background of the rival gaining ground against Netanyahu. Eisenkot draws on his military background as a former chief of staff, making accountability, competence and trust central to his campaign message.
Eitan Shamir, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, said Eisenkot’s strength rests on his personal image, military experience and what Shamir called “his family’s sacrifices during the war,” alongside his hawkish security positions towards Lebanon and the Palestinians. This allows Eisenkot to challenge Netanyahu’s record on security, long one of the Likud leader’s greatest strengths.
Netanyahu’s coalition clashes with international plans
Foreign capitals’ calculations extend beyond Netanyahu himself to the composition of his governing coalition. The Trump administration’s plans for Gaza depend on moving to a phase that includes Hamas’s disarmament, a technocratic Palestinian administration, international stabilisation arrangements, the redeployment of occupation forces and a reconstruction process.
Netanyahu’s political survival, meanwhile, depends on Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and leader of the Religious Zionism party, who has extensive control over settlement matters within the Defence Ministry, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister and leader of Jewish Power.
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have made opposing withdrawals from the Gaza Strip and promoting settlement expansion and the displacement of Palestinians central to their political agendas.
A senior official on the Peace Board, the framework sponsored by the Trump administration to oversee arrangements for Gaza, told The Times of Israel that Netanyahu’s cooperation with the US plan had declined sharply since the election campaign began. The official said Washington expected to regain its ability to exert pressure after the election, regardless of who wins.
This puts decisions on Gaza in the weeks before the vote under pressure from competition within the right. Any step involving withdrawal or compromise can give Smotrich and Ben-Gvir ammunition against Likud.
In the West Bank, the conflict is even sharper. Since September 2025, the UAE has warned that annexation, or measures leading to it, represents a “red line” that could undermine the Abraham Accords normalisation agreements. It has specifically linked the warning to the E1 settlement project east of Jerusalem.
In a later meeting with Netanyahu, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan pressed for support for Trump’s Gaza plan and a halt to moves towards annexation. He viewed continued moves towards annexation as a strain on existing normalisation agreements and on the prospects of extending them to other Arab states.
These concerns overlap with Washington’s calculations regarding Saudi Arabia. The Trump administration is seeking to link a long-term strategic and nuclear partnership with Riyadh to normalisation with Israel, while the kingdom insists on a credible path towards a Palestinian state.
Continued expansion in E1, de facto annexation and settler crimes put Netanyahu’s government on a collision course with a broader US and Arab objective. This is particularly so given that Smotrich has expanded his institutional influence over the administration of the West Bank during the government’s tenure and pushed to legalise more settlement construction.
Britain moved on 8 September to introduce measures targeting settlement activity. A British official told reporters the following day that their scope could be expanded or reduced depending on the policies of the occupation government that takes power after the election.
The Jerusalem Post said Israel had assured London, Paris and Berlin that it would not take further steps on the E1 project before the vote. It then issued a tender with a deadline about a week before the election. That timing was among the reasons the British government hardened its position.
The complications extend to Syria and Lebanon. The White House is bringing arrangements for Gaza, Israeli-Lebanese negotiations, the security understanding with Syria and Saudi normalisation into a single agenda for the next phase. Netanyahu’s reliance on partners who can threaten his government’s survival over any withdrawal or compromise makes those plans harder to implement during an election campaign, when concessions to Washington or Arab capitals become ammunition for rivals within the right.
The rivals’ own programmes also limit the scale of change foreign capitals can expect after the election. Bennett, Lapid and Eisenkot all criticised the ceasefire with Lebanon that Trump pushed in the spring.
Bennett opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state. Eisenkot avoids making the two-state solution central to his programme and advocates broad latitude for military action in Lebanon.
A poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute also showed that nearly three-quarters of Israeli Jews support some form of West Bank annexation. Any incoming government would therefore operate in a political environment that takes a hard line towards the Palestinians.
Some outside circles’ interest in a different government is tied to its expected composition and its ability to manage relations and implement agreements. Dahlia Scheindlin, a political consultant, Israeli pollster and Haaretz columnist, believes a government after Netanyahu could reduce clashes with institutions and repair some damaged diplomatic relationships. She nevertheless expects only limited change in policy towards the Palestinians.
Nimrod Novik, a former envoy of Israeli President Shimon Peres and an analyst on Israeli-Palestinian affairs, believes that Netanyahu’s acceptance of compromises with outside actors before the vote would threaten his “total victory” narrative and put him at odds with his right-wing partners. This raises the political cost of reaching agreements with him during the campaign.
Assessments of the difference between the two possible governments have also extended to financial markets. On 27 August, JPMorgan, one of the largest US investment banks, put the probability of an opposition victory led by Eisenkot at about 55 per cent in its baseline scenario. It projected that the shekel would rise by 2 to 3 per cent in that event as concerns over institutions eased, compared with a possible decline of about 3 per cent 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. The identity of the next government has thus also entered international financial institutions’ assessments of political risk.
External pressure could weaken Netanyahu or rally the right
As calculations about a “post-Netanyahu” government become more widespread, the prime minister of the occupation government and his allies are trying to refocus the campaign on security, settlement expansion and imposing facts on the ground. The E1 project offers the clearest link between politics and electoral timing.
On 19 August, occupation authorities issued a tender to build 1,234 settlement units in seven compounds east of Jerusalem, setting the deadline for bids about a week before the election. According to the Israeli organisation Peace Now, this acceleration is part of measures pushing towards de facto annexation of the West Bank.
By September, there were about 340 settlement outposts that occupation authorities claim not to recognise officially, alongside 146 settlements recognised by Israel. During the government’s tenure, Smotrich has overseen the legalisation of settlement projects that began without official permits.
On 6 September, another aspect of competition within the right emerged when Netanyahu ordered the removal of unauthorised settlement outposts after mounting US pressure over settler attacks. Smotrich objected publicly.
Netanyahu faces the task of balancing his relationship with Washington against preventing votes from shifting from Likud to other parties. He has made uniting the right-wing camp and preventing votes from being lost to parties that fall below the electoral threshold priorities of his campaign.
In Gaza, Ben-Gvir presented a written plan in early September to displace large numbers of Palestinians outside the Strip. 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 subsequently said the government had no official plan to do so.
This political one-upmanship reveals the gap between the commitments the occupation government needs in its dealings with Washington and Arab capitals and the rhetoric Netanyahu’s partners use to attract right-wing voters.
On 9 September, Netanyahu and his defence minister, Israel Katz, entered areas occupied by his forces on Mount Hermon in Syria. There, they spoke of continued Israeli security control over the area. The visit formed part of a campaign that has made security, control and regional adversaries central to its message.
Yedioth Ahronoth documented the growing use of Turkey and regional adversaries in Netanyahu’s election campaign. A huge billboard appeared in Tel Aviv featuring Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan alongside leaders of Iran and Hezbollah and the mayor of New York. Its message said they wanted to defeat the current prime minister and urged voters to prevent them from doing so.
Opinion polls reveal the risks and opportunities this contest holds for the prime minister of the occupation government. In an index published by the Israel Democracy Institute following a survey conducted between 31 August and 3 September, 68 per cent of Jews said the events of Al-Aqsa Flood were central to their electoral choice. Meanwhile, 39 per cent placed security and foreign policy among the two most important factors in their decision, rising to 47 per cent on the right.
The relationship with the US also matters to Likud’s own base. Among Jews, 55 per cent said it was important in choosing which party to vote for, a figure approaching two-thirds among Likud voters.
In the same poll, 54 per cent of Jews saw a high likelihood of improper foreign attempts to influence the election. This gives the opposition room to attack Netanyahu over the deterioration of his relations with Washington, while also allowing him to portray outside pressure as an attempt to influence Israeli voters’ choices.
Sa’ar drew on this sentiment when he described the British measures as “blatant interference” in Israeli politics. The occupation government responded by closing the British Consulate in East Jerusalem, excluding Britain from some arrangements for Gaza and halting its role in training Palestinian Authority forces.
Scheindlin believes these measures are more likely to reinforce existing political allegiances than shift large blocs of voters. Netanyahu’s supporters see them as evidence of outside hostility towards his government, while his opponents view them as the result of the isolation caused by the coalition’s policies.
The Peace Board official who spoke to The Times of Israel offered a similar assessment, saying that pressure or sanctions before the election could help Netanyahu politically when he presents himself to voters as the man who stood firm against the US and refused to yield over Gaza.
Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat who held posts in the Foreign Ministry and the Israeli consulate in New York, believes Netanyahu may calculate that challenging Washington before the vote carries a lower domestic political cost than making concessions that would allow Smotrich and Ben-Gvir to attack him from the right.
The failure of 7 October remains Netanyahu’s greatest vulnerability. Amotz Asa-El, a political analyst at the Shalom Hartman Institute in occupied Jerusalem, said the prime minister faced an unprecedented situation in his career and that Israelis were living through a historic crisis associated with his name.
Tamar Hermann, a political science professor, senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and public opinion specialist, cautions against concluding from Netanyahu’s current position that his career is over. She cites his repeated ability to regroup his camp and emerge from extremely serious political crises.
Recent polls reflect the intensity of the contest. A poll conducted by Maariv and Lazar Research on 7 and 8 September projected 25 seats for Eisenkot’s Yashar party, compared with 20 for Likud and 13 for Bennett’s party.
A Channel 12 poll on 7 September gave Yashar 25 seats, Likud 21 and Bennett’s party 13. Eisenkot also led Netanyahu by 42 per cent to 35 per cent when respondents were asked who was more suitable to be prime minister.
By contrast, Channel 14 gave Likud 30 seats on 7 September and 31 two days later, compared with 22 for Eisenkot. In the head-to-head contest for prime minister, Eisenkot’s support rose from 44 to 47 per cent, while Netanyahu’s fell from 56 to 53 per cent.
As the election approaches, the identity of the next government has become part of regional and international calculations involving Gaza, the West Bank, normalisation and relations with Washington. With Eisenkot gaining ground in several polls, outside actors increasingly regard the possible end of the Netanyahu era as a realistic political prospect on which they can base their plans.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, is entering the final weeks seeking to turn this climate into a battle over sovereignty and the right. He is using security, settlement expansion and foreign adversaries to rally his base.
The influence of outside actors on the election therefore depends on each camp’s ability to establish its narrative: one holds Netanyahu responsible for failure and isolation; the other sees him as a leader facing pressure because he refuses to retreat.