Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 29, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a master political tactician, is likely to call early elections this spring or early summer — not by accident, but by design. His goal will be simple: maximize his chances of forming a new coalition and staying in power.
Israel’s domestic politics is reaching a boiling point. Ultra-Orthodox parties are threatening to block passage of the national budget, a move that would automatically bring down the government, possibly within weeks. That timing would give Netanyahu a politically priceless opening: elections during Israel’s most emotionally charged period, immediately following Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day for fallen soldiers, and the joyous celebration of Independence Day.
Add to that a carefully orchestrated campaign-season visit by President Trump, and Netanyahu’s political machine would be firing on all cylinders.
But this election won’t just be about timing or tactics. It will be about Israel’s future and what kind of country Israelis want to live in.
At the center of the storm is one explosive domestic issue: the ultra-Orthodox exemption from military service.
While secular Israelis and non-Haredi religious Jews serve and die in uniform, most ultra-Orthodox men remain exempt, studying in yeshivas as Israel faces its longest war in history and an urgent need for an additional 10,000 to 20,000 combat troops. Hundreds of thousands of reservists from across the political and religious spectrum have spent months away from their families and jobs. The resentment is no longer simmering — it’s boiling over.
As a recent Jerusalem Post editorial put it: “Reserve soldiers and their families have carried a burden that is physical, financial, and spiritual. … They have done so not because it is easy, and not because anyone has explained a coherent national destination — but because this is what a society does when it still believes it is one society.”
Netanyahu’s Likud party has become dependent on these Orthodox factions to form governing coalitions. The price they demand is steep: permanent draft exemptions and massive taxpayer subsidies for school systems that refuse to teach core secular subjects, leaving many men unemployable and dependent on state welfare.
To maintain the support of the ultra-Orthodox, Netanyahu has sought to reframe the debate by insisting that any legislation address all Israeli draft dodgers, a move that deliberately makes such a law harder to pass. Those who do not serve in the Israel Defense Forces or perform national service include over 90 percent of the ultra-Orthodox, more than 95 percent of Israeli Arabs, and roughly 13 percent of secular Jewish Israelis. In population terms, the Haredi community constitutes about 13 percent of Israel’s population, while Israeli Arabs make up about 21 percent.
Israel’s “secret sauce” has always been national unity and social cohesion. Both are now under severe strain.
The outcome of the next election will likely be decided by reservists, their families, their extended circles, and the 85 percent of Israelis who are not ultra-Orthodox. If Netanyahu cannot form a government without the Haredi parties, or refuses to consider a national unity government in which he is not prime minister, Israel’s social fabric may fray beyond repair.
To better understand where Israel is heading, I have begun meeting one-on-one with Israeli political leaders across the spectrum.
My first meeting was with former prime minister and current opposition leader Yair Lapid. Lapid is clear-eyed about one thing: running an election on “anyone but Bibi” is a losing strategy. Israelis already have deeply entrenched views about Netanyahu, for and against. Lapid argues the country needs a vision, not just an alternative personality.
Lapid has served in Netanyahu-led governments and later as prime minister without him. He believes Israel must remain both Jewish and democratic — not choose one over the other. In his view, Israel’s military strength and technological dominance are inseparable from its openness. Only a free, pluralistic society could have produced the Iron Dome and the innovations that made Israel the “Startup Nation.”
During the 2014 Gaza war, Lapid defended Netanyahu’s government out of principle rather than political convenience, even as others sought partisan advantage. Even while in opposition in 2024, he traveled to Europe to defend Israel’s conduct. Yet that same commitment led him to condemn Netanyahu for what he called a “complete diplomatic failure” in 2026 over the composition of Gaza’s executive board, faulting the prime minister for letting Egypt be sidelined while Qatar and Turkey were elevated.
Many Americans don’t understand how Israel’s fractured parliamentary system works or how destabilizing it can be. Such systems may limp along in countries without existential threats, but Israel has never known a single day of true peace in its 78-year history.
This election matters not just to Israelis, but to Americans. Israel remains a strategic pillar of U.S. national security, effectively a forward U.S. aircraft carrier in the most volatile region on earth.
For Americans trying to understand Israel’s internal divide and upcoming election, one imperfect but telling question is this: Does an Israeli primarily define themselves as Jewish or as Israeli? Often, the former aligns with the political right, the latter with the left, though security hawks exist on both sides.
Wherever one stands politically in Israel, and for Americans who believe a strong Israel is vital to U.S. security, they should see this upcoming election for what it is: a defining moment that demands shared responsibility for Israel’s defense. The election is coming sooner than many expect, and it may prove one of the most consequential in the country’s history.
This article appeared on The Hill on January 25, 2026.
Eric R. Mandel is the director of the Middle East Political Information Network and senior security editor for the Jerusalem Post’s Jerusalem Report.