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On the eve of the Israeli elections, scheduled for tomorrow, 27 October 2026, tensions between Israeli parties are intensifying as they compete to shape the country’s next political landscape. Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque have become central to this competition as the main arena for Judaization, where religious and nationalist ideologies intersect. Politicians of the occupation are seeking to attract right-wing voters and shift the balance of power within rival camps.
Examining the main election issues and the place of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa in the electoral debate, this article argues that these political forces are united in entrenching control over Jerusalem. Their differences concern how far to go, which means to use and when to act: some advance more ambitious demands, while others turn those demands into electoral support or bargaining chips in negotiations over the next government.
As politicians compete to outbid one another, Ben-Gvir repeatedly invokes Al-Aqsa, while Bezalel Smotrich pushes for more settlement projects to be approved. Moshe Feiglin goes beyond the details of aggression at Al-Aqsa to speak openly about building the alleged “Temple,” alongside several other political actors.
Consensus on Judaization
A central feature of the broader Israeli approach to Jerusalem is the Zionist consensus on the “Judaization of Jerusalem,” a pillar of the occupation at its various levels that transcends party competition. According to Jerusalem affairs researcher Ziyad Ibhais, this consensus has existed since the occupation of the city, although Israeli political currents have historically differed over the scope of their goals and the means of achieving them.
Ibhais explains that secular Zionist elites focused on occupying and annexing Jerusalem and imposing a Jewish identity on its eastern half through settlement. The current phase, he says, has seen the rise of “religious Zionism” and efforts to pursue more ambitious goals concerning Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Palestinian presence in the city.
From this perspective, escalating aggression against Jerusalem and targeting Al-Aqsa Mosque are important electoral tools, but they do not determine the election outcome on their own. Likud affirms sovereignty over both halves of the occupied city while taking account of the security and diplomatic repercussions of escalating aggression. Forces on the religious and nationalist right, meanwhile, are pushing to accelerate Judaization and consolidate a Jewish presence at Al-Aqsa.
These differences again show that parties within the occupation state do not share a single programme for Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa. They differ over the scale of escalation, the sequence and priorities of acts of aggression, the means used and the messages their leaders send to supporters. All operate within the broader project of imposing full occupation control over Jerusalem and changing its demographic composition, urban character and religious identity.
Despite this prominence in Israeli political statements, Al-Aqsa does not top voters’ priorities, according to available polling. In a Channel 12 poll, 32 per cent said managing the multi-front war was the most important factor in determining their vote, compared with 25 per cent who chose the cost of living and the economy. In a February poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute, about 30 per cent chose “replacing the government” as their top priority.
This difference in voter priorities indicates that efforts to outbid rivals over Al-Aqsa, and to a lesser extent Jerusalem, target a specific bloc of religious and nationalist right-wing voters. The contest is more about winning a larger share of support within that camp than decisively determining the overall election result.
Escalating incursions
Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of Otzma Yehudit and national security minister in the current government, is one of the most prominent figures competing to escalate aggression against Al-Aqsa. He regularly takes part in storming the mosque and, since taking office, has enabled further assaults on it, its worshippers and its staff.
He has repeatedly called for Jews to be allowed to pray openly at Al-Aqsa and endorsed the idea of establishing a synagogue inside it. During his storming of the mosque on 11 June 2025, when several senior occupation police officers accompanied him, a notable incident occurred. According to Hebrew sources, Ben-Gvir rebuked police officers after they stopped a group of settlers from storming the mosque while singing and dancing.
Following Ben-Gvir’s intervention, loud singing and dancing at Al-Aqsa have escalated without intervention by occupation police.
As the Knesset elections approach, coinciding with the extended Hebrew holiday season, Ben-Gvir declared during his storming of Al-Aqsa that they were the “sovereigns of the mosque.” Although consistent with his acts of aggression, the statement also forms part of electoral manoeuvring and efforts to attract voters from the “religious Zionism” camp.
At the same time, Ben-Gvir renewed his push to open the mosque’s gates to incursions on Saturdays, backing a request submitted to Israel’s Supreme Court by “Temple organizations”. The demand had been raised at a conference organised by extremist occupation groups on 27 August 2026, attended by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi and Knesset member Amit Halevi. The aim was to increase the number of days on which Al-Aqsa is opened to incursions and impose Saturday, sacred to Jews, as a day for them, in contrast to Friday, sacred to Muslims, when incursions are prohibited.
According to Hebrew sources, Ben-Gvir wrote to Netanyahu on 3 September demanding that the mosque be opened to Jews on Saturdays. Although a ruling was postponed following Netanyahu’s request for an extension, Ben-Gvir’s direct support for the demand serves several goals, including sending electoral messages to his base and right-wing voters more broadly.
Ben-Gvir has Netanyahu’s political backing. Netanyahu repeatedly insists that the status quo at Al-Aqsa has not changed, even as his actions and his permission for escalating aggression against the mosque starkly contradict those statements. At a meeting of the occupation government on 4 January 2026, Netanyahu said the changes Ben-Gvir was making did not affect the status quo and were being carried out in coordination with him.
According to a June report in Haaretz, Netanyahu blocked a clause that would have required Ben-Gvir to obtain his or the government’s approval for sensitive decisions concerning Al-Aqsa. This effectively left those decisions in the minister’s hands, in coordination with the Jerusalem police commander.
Alongside this support, several Likud Knesset members have repeatedly taken part in storming Al-Aqsa. Among the most prominent are Amit Halevi, Knesset Deputy Speaker Nissim Vaturi and Ariel Kallner, all of whom participated in incursions during recent months in 2026.
This confirms that Likud combines official statements insisting that the “status quo” remains unchanged with practices that allow its gradual alteration through the participation of several party members. This is another way of pursuing Judaization, but at a quieter pace and with lower diplomatic costs.
Calls to demolish Al-Aqsa
Among Israeli political actors, Moshe Feiglin, leader of Zehut and a Likud defector, stands out as one of the most prominent figures participating in aggression against Al-Aqsa Mosque. Although he currently holds no political office, the former Knesset deputy speaker remains a prominent figure. He is contesting the election on a joint list with Smotrich, in the first alliance announced within the right-wing camp.
Feiglin’s political rhetoric focuses on escalating aggression against Al-Aqsa, and he frequently takes part in storming it. Before announcing his alliance with Smotrich, he stepped up his public calls to demolish Al-Aqsa and build the “Temple.” On 4 September, he posted a video claiming that the Dome of the Rock stands on the site of the “Temple,” followed by another clip showing a model of the “Temple” he hopes to build.
He also posted a video filmed during his storming of Al-Aqsa in which he said: “Today, something new and great is happening. Our mission is to return to Jewish identity in its broadest and fullest sense.” During the latest Hebrew holiday season, videos dated 30 September 2026 showed him performing a ritual involving plant offerings while storming Al-Aqsa.
In an election interview published by Israel’s N12 channel on 17 October, Feiglin was asked directly: “If you were elected prime minister in 15 minutes or in 20 years, would you begin the infrastructure work to establish the Temple in place of Al-Aqsa Mosque?”
His answer was direct, although qualified: “First and foremost, I would truly allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount as is happening now, because there are many things that are still prohibited. But I will tell you something fundamental, and I’m glad about this question: The Temple will not be built as a result of a coalition majority. The Temple will be built when we all want it. And do you know who will evacuate the mosques? The Arabs will evacuate the mosques.”
Al-Aqsa in election propaganda
Beyond these figures, candidates and Knesset members have sought to strengthen their standing within their parties through attacks on Al-Aqsa. One example is far-right activist Smadar Hila Shmueli, who stormed the mosque on 10 August 2026 and posted a photograph from its eastern courtyards.
The incursion was part of her campaign for the women’s slot in the Likud primaries. She failed to secure a place on the party’s final lists, indicating that storming Al-Aqsa alone does not guarantee electoral support, even among the voters it is intended to attract.
Another example involving internal party elections is Amit Halevi, a Likud Knesset member and one of the most prominent participants in aggression against Al-Aqsa. At the end of November 2025, following Likud’s internal elections in occupied Jerusalem — its first there in more than 14 years, according to sources — Halevi appeared in a video thanking Rabbi Shlomi Alboum and his family. He described the rabbi as the reason for his electoral success.
Alboum is one of the leaders of the party’s “Temple Mount Forum”, which is closely linked to the “Temple organizations.” The incident points to the audience Halevi is addressing and the party network backing him, where ambitions for political advancement intersect with the “Temple” agenda.
The broader picture also includes the place of Al-Aqsa in the politics of Shas and United Torah Judaism. Their platforms focus on their constituencies’ demands, from funding religious institutions to exemptions from military conscription. Their position on building the “Temple” differs from that of the “religious Zionism” camp, as Haredi religious authorities link its construction to the coming of the Messiah.
Even so, incursions into Al-Aqsa became an issue in party competition as the election approached. In October 2026, Shas intensified its campaign against Ben-Gvir in an attempt to win back religious Sephardi voters who had shifted to Otzma Yehudit. Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef invoked the traditional religious prohibition on incursions into Al-Aqsa, adopted by the official rabbinate, to warn against voting for Ben-Gvir.
On 18 October, Yosef was reported to have issued a message forbidding his followers from voting for Ben-Gvir and his party. He cited Ben-Gvir’s participation in storming Al-Aqsa, which Jewish law prohibits according to the religious authority he follows.
These developments confirm that competition for right-wing voters within the religious camp centres more on disagreements over specific religious questions than on any position concerning Palestinian rights.
Changing Jerusalem’s geography
Alongside Ben-Gvir, current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is another leading figure in the “religious Zionism” camp. He dominates settlement activity and demographic aggression in the occupied territories but is relatively removed from aggression against Al-Aqsa. The difference between the two lies in their methods and the means they use.
Ben-Gvir focuses his aggression on Al-Aqsa and highlights it in his rhetoric and actions, to the point that it has become part of his political image over the past few years. Smotrich, by contrast, focuses on settlement and strengthening his control within institutions and bureaucracies. He refrains from storming Al-Aqsa in adherence to the ruling of the occupation state’s official rabbinate, which prohibits ascending to it before the condition of “purity” has been met.
Despite these differences, they agree on the goals. Groups within the “religious Zionism” camp endorse changing the mosque’s status quo, ending its Islamic administration and imposing Israeli control over it.
The E1 project, between Jerusalem and the settlement of Maale Adumim, illustrates how settlement projects in the area are tied to determining the city’s future. Through the project, occupation authorities seek to fragment Palestinian areas and impede geographical contiguity in the West Bank.
With the election approaching, a dispute over settlement tenders for the project erupted in September 2026. The government’s legal adviser requested that the submission deadline be postponed until after the election, fearing that the tenders would be used in election propaganda. Smotrich objected to the decision, accusing the legal adviser of interfering in the election and acting in the opposition’s interests. He demanded that the process continue before polling day.
Objecting to the cost, not the goal
The opposition does not offer a different narrative on the situation at Al-Aqsa Mosque. Its objections instead focus on how the ruling right’s policies and attacks on the mosque affect the occupation’s security. One of the clearest examples is Yair Lapid’s criticism of Ben-Gvir’s policies on 13 August 2024. Criticising his incursions into Al-Aqsa, Lapid said Ben-Gvir’s actions at the mosque contradicted “the position of the security services and puts lives at risk.” The basis of his objection was therefore the security cost; he did not address the principle of control over the mosque or the escalation of Jewish rituals inside it.
Specialists in Israeli affairs have pointed out that centrist and opposition parties share Likud’s position in affirming sovereignty over Jerusalem, differing only in their assessment of the security and diplomatic repercussions. The opposition is contesting the election through the “Beyahad” list, which brings together Lapid and Naftali Bennett, and Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar, one of the leading opposition parties. Calculations about winning power make the opposition’s position on Al-Aqsa more a part of the struggle for office than an objection to Israeli policies towards the mosque.
These facts show that Al-Aqsa has become central to electoral competition. But its prominence does not mean that the election alone determines the course of policy towards it. Across the occupation’s political forces, the general trend remains towards advancing more ambitious demands and imposing facts on the ground at Al-Aqsa and in occupied Jerusalem. They use a range of means in which political figures’ calls intersect with their direct aggression against the mosque.
It is therefore not enough to ask who will win or what the next government will look like. It is equally important to track what becomes of the demands being advanced: changes to arrangements for incursions, including longer hours and additional days; allowing more rituals inside Al-Aqsa; settlement projects around and within Jerusalem; and measures affecting the Palestinian presence in the city. The decisive measure in this continuing competition goes beyond who advances the most extreme slogans to how far their proponents can impose them on the ground and turn them into practical measures that intensify Judaization.