“They want Netanyahu to lose,” reads a Likud campaign poster featuring Naim Qassem and Mojtaba Khamenei alongside Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Zohran Mamdani. But a closer examination of discourse across the Middle East, particularly in the Arab world, suggests that many in the region — including countries that maintain formal relations with Israel or engage in covert cooperation with it — are actually yearning for political change in Israel. No Arab leader has spoken openly on the issue, for fear of being accused of interfering in Israel’s internal affairs ahead of the election, but the message is clear: The region wants a change in government and, above all, fears the continued advancement of the current government’s policies.
The Arab consensus regarding Netanyahu has taken shape over the past three years, amid countless declarations and moves that many in the region — and around the world — view as reflecting an Israel that has lost its balance, become addicted to fantasies and shown a willingness to embark on adventures that destabilize the Middle East.
Coverage of the Israeli election on Al Jazeera
(Photo: Screenshot)
The fears keeping Israel’s neighbors awake at night center primarily on the prospect of pushing Gazans into Arab countries and expanding Israel’s territory; cultivating separatist groups perceived as a subversive threat in the Arab world, including Somaliland, the Kurds in Iran and minorities in Syria; seeking out enemies and launching wars, including against Egypt and Turkey; dragging the Americans into an endless maelstrom, as demonstrated by Operation Roaring Lion; fueling a religious war by undermining the status quo on the Temple Mount and at the Cave of the Patriarchs, alongside the burning of mosques in the West Bank; and the ongoing absorption of the West Bank, effectively and openly ending any prospect of an agreement with the Palestinians.
All this stands in contrast to the narrative presented to the Israeli public about a regional alliance taking shape around the shared Iranian threat — with any disclosure of ties with Israel vigorously denied — and about growing prospects for expanding the Abraham Accords. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has consistently made clear that there will be no normalization without addressing the Palestinian issue.
“Netanyahu aspires to establish hegemony in the Middle East and realize the vision of a ‘Greater Israel,’ yet he has failed even in his smallest theater of war [implicitly, Gaza],” said Palestinian commentator and senior Fatah official Nabil Amr. “Had he invested in integrating Israel into the region, he would have gone down in history as a leader on the scale of the country’s founders. Instead, he is focused on securing another term and escaping the ‘legal guillotine,’ causing Israel severe damage that could yet intensify and become the most destructive in the country’s history.”
The tense atmosphere ahead of the election is heightening concerns about Israel around the world. On Wednesday, Jared Kushner said that amid a “crazy” election campaign, Israel was behaving “a little irrational.” The main concern is that Netanyahu could initiate military action on one of Israel’s fronts in an effort to improve his image or disrupt the holding of the election. Particular attention is focused on the West Bank, where settler violence is escalating and exacting a heavy diplomatic price. This comes against the backdrop of statements about preparations for an all-out war against the Palestinian Authority, which appear to reflect an aspiration to fulfill a “warning” about Palestinian security forces turning their guns on Israel — a scenario whose likelihood has increased because of Israeli actions.
Beyond concern that Netanyahu’s coalition could win the election, there are fears that its current policies would intensify, inevitably leading to a deterioration in relations between Israel and countries in the region. “The current government remaining in power, particularly if it is strengthened by figures such as Moshe Feiglin and Ofer Winter, would require Jordan to prepare for the possibility of war and reconsider its relations with Israel,” Jordanian researcher Dr. Ayman Haniti said in a conversation this week.
Particular concern has been expressed over National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s “Disengagement 710” plan for the “voluntary migration” of Gaza residents. Against this backdrop, eight Arab and Muslim countries — Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia — issued a joint condemnation this week of statements by Israeli politicians regarding the implementation of population transfer.
“A victory by the current coalition would mean abandoning efforts to reach an arrangement in Gaza and moving toward implementing displacement, with ‘Plan 710’ going from a party document to government policy,” Palestinian researcher Ahmed Issa said.
Lebanese commentator George Issa: “It is difficult to find substantial differences between the positions of Israeli leaders after Oct. 7. The climate in Israel does not allow for prime ministers who would pursue a more moderate line than Netanyahu. At most, a leader may be elected who provokes less domestic controversy.”
The Arab world sees the upcoming election as fateful not only for Israel but for the future of the entire region. Interest in Israel’s political maelstrom — accompanied by a striking familiarity with its finer details — is unprecedented. Every party merger and reserved spot on an electoral slate receives extensive coverage in Arab media, alongside polling results. Two weeks ago, the Saudi magazine Al Majalla devoted an issue to covering the election campaign, including a spotlight on Gadi Eisenkot (“Will he become Israel’s leader, break the ‘curse of the generals’ and end the Netanyahu era?”), an analysis of the components of the Religious Zionist movement and voting trends among Arab citizens of Israel.
There is indeed emerging hope that the opposition will win, but it is accompanied by concern that rapid and dramatic change may not necessarily follow. This is due both to the likely composition of a future government, particularly the rightward leanings of some of its members, and to expectations that the current coalition, if defeated, would make vigorous efforts to thwart any change.
“Eisenkot comes from a right-wing cultural background and his mother supported Shas for decades. He is known for hawkish security positions and was the architect of the ‘Dahiya Doctrine,’” Lebanese commentator George Issa said. “More broadly, it is difficult to find substantial differences between the positions of Israeli leaders after Oct. 7. The prevailing climate in Israel does not allow for prime ministers who would pursue a more moderate line than Netanyahu. At most, a leader may be elected who provokes less domestic controversy.”
Ibrahim al-Amine, a Lebanese columnist who reflects Hezbollah’s positions, added: “There are no substantive differences among the candidates. The main debate is over style and methods.”
Still, the prevailing assumption across much of Arab discourse is that a new government would be the lesser of two evils compared with the current situation.
Another development attracting attention is the addition of Yoav Segalovich to Ra’am, the United Arab List. The move, in which a senior former police officer and avowed Zionist is joining an Islamist party, is difficult to digest in the Arab world as well as among Arab citizens of Israel.
“Bringing Segalovich into the party is intended to enable Mansour Abbas to join a coalition, a scenario that would undoubtedly have Sayyid Qutb [one of the ideological forefathers of the Muslim Brotherhood] turning furiously in his grave,” Jordanian commentator Ziad Barakat said. “If Abbas truly adhered to the Muslim Brotherhood’s doctrine, he would never have entered the Knesset. He seeks to turn the ‘48 Arabs’ [a common Arab term for Arab citizens of Israel] into Israelis and establish a version of the Druze-Zionist alliance.”
As with many other issues, when it comes to the region, the Israeli public needs to take a critical and clear-eyed look at the barrage of narratives, slogans and fantasies that has raged here since Oct. 7. The central lesson is that Israel cannot wage an eternal multifront war, establish a single state while effectively annexing the West Bank, encourage the transfer of Palestinians and adhere to goals with a religious-messianic character — foremost among them building the Third Temple and destroying Al-Aqsa Mosque — while simultaneously advancing normalization. The claim that it can do both was a false premise at the heart of the conception that preceded Oct. 7.
If the current policy toward the region continues, not only will the illusions described above prove, as expected, to be a failure, but Israel will also suffer severe damage and face a grave threat to strategic assets secured after bitter wars and on which its national security rests — foremost among them its peace agreements with Arab states.
Dr. Michael Milshtein is a senior researcher at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University