Israel votes on Tuesday in its first national election since Hamas’s surprise attack of 7 October 2023, an event that shook the country, triggered war in Gaza and with Hamas’s allies in Lebanon and Iran, and plunged the region into turmoil. Opinion polls have predicted for months that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition of right-wing, far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties will lose its majority. But his main rival, the centrist Gadi Eisenkot, has no clear route to power either, and the race has tightened as election day nears. In that kind of contest, the decisive ground is often not among committed opponents but among voters who have long belonged to the other side. Few places illustrate this better than Dimona, a remote Negev town long regarded as a Likud stronghold.
Dimona has become a political battleground. An Iranian missile wounded dozens of people there in March, a reminder that the war reaches ordinary Israelis in places far from the main population centres. In the 2022 election, half of Dimona’s voters cast their ballots for Likud, so winning even a part of that support would be a victory for the opposition.
Residents who once backed the party are now campaigning door to door for Eisenkot’s party, Yashar, which is neck and neck with Likud in the polls. “We must have change. Bibi has to go,” said Yossi Assayag, 74, who says he has supported Likud for most of his life. “Bibi has brought disaster to Israel.”
The sentiment is far from universal. Ruti Ohana, a pensioner who has voted Likud since she immigrated from North Africa more than 60 years ago, said: “I will never betray Likud.” She regards Netanyahu as a cut above his rivals and the blame he receives for 7 October as unfair. The two voices represent the divide inside the Likud electorate: a loyalist core and a group that is questioning a lifetime habit.
To understand the contest, it is necessary to look at the party’s roots. Likud built a core voter base among Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent, known as Mizrahis, who felt neglected by the European-influenced, centre-left Labor Party that dominated Israel for generations. Labor has since dwindled to a rump as politics shifted to the right, and about half a dozen other parties now court Likud voters, from the centre to the far right.
Yet the attachment to the party remains strong, and often rests on identity and upbringing as much as on current policy. Oria Asaf, 25, a former Likud voter now backing Yashar, put it this way: “Most people here vote for Likud just because that’s how they were raised.” In her view, change will come “when people start to think about their children’s future rather than their parents’ past.” Her remark describes generational politics: loyalty inherited from parents is giving way, for some younger voters, to calculations about the future.
Polling data from the Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute give the picture a quantitative frame. About 13% of Israeli voters have yet to decide how they will vote. Among those who voted for Likud in 2022, only 55% say they will do so again. Fifteen percent will support parties aligned against Netanyahu, including 8% for Yashar. Another 14% will vote for alternative right-wing parties, and 9% are undecided.
The distribution shows that Netanyahu’s problem is not only defection to the opposition. A nearly equal share of his former voters is moving to other right-wing parties, which would deprive Likud of seats without necessarily helping the anti-Netanyahu bloc, although those parties might still sit in a right-wing coalition. For Eisenkot, the 15% of Likud’s 2022 voters who are turning to anti-Netanyahu parties are a real gain, and the undecided 9% are a potential addition. The arithmetic of coalition-building means that what matters is not only the size of each party but which blocs they can join.
Eisenkot, 66, is the child of Moroccan immigrants who rose through the ranks to become the military’s chief of staff. According to political scientist Amotz Asa-El of the Hartman Institute, his personal story of humble origins from the Mizrahi community “appeals to a big swath of the Israeli electorate, particularly Likud’s traditional electorate.” In a field crowded with former soldiers, his security credentials are an asset. His son was killed in combat in Gaza in December 2023, a loss that resonates with voters. At a town hall in Dimona in July, residents said they were excited about the prospect of a leader of Mizrahi descent, and some approached him with hugs and tearful condolences.
That combination of ethnic background, military record and personal loss makes him a different type of rival from the Ashkenazi, secular figures whom Likud voters have historically distrusted. It also shows how much the election is a contest about identity and trust as well as policy.
Netanyahu’s own strengths should not be underestimated. A week after Eisenkot’s July visit to Dimona, the prime minister held his own event, demonstrating his appeal in the hardscrabble Negev, where Likud governments have long boasted of bringing development funds. “Look around you, look at your community, look at what was here then and what is here now, and ask yourselves which governments invested in this monumental effort,” he said. “And I do this out of immense love.”
The argument is that Likud delivers material improvements to peripheral communities that earlier governments ignored. Lior Katzav, a former Likud mayor of Kiryat Malachi, another small-town stronghold, said party surveys show that voters who had abandoned Likud are returning as the election approaches. This is the party’s own assessment and has not been independently verified, but it matches a familiar pattern: voters who are unhappy in the abstract often come home when the choice becomes concrete.
One theme cuts across the arguments. Netanyahu was Israel’s youngest prime minister when first elected 30 years ago, and he has become its longest-serving. At 77, he has governed for 18 years over six terms. Even some sympathisers say it may be time for change. “He’s done a lot for Israel but it can’t go on,” said David Iskali, a software engineer in Dimona. “I won’t give my vote to someone almost 80 years old.”
Age and tenure matter because they provide a reason to leave that does not require a verdict on 7 October or on the war. A voter can respect a leader’s achievements and still decide that after 18 years it is time for someone else. For wavering Likud supporters, that is a more comfortable position than outright rejection.
Several outcomes will show how far the shift has gone. The first is Likud’s share relative to Yashar in places such as Dimona and Kiryat Malachi: strong Likud numbers in its strongholds would indicate that the party’s base has held. The second is the vote for other right-wing parties, which could limit Likud’s seat total yet still help a right-wing coalition. The third is turnout among the undecided and young voters. The fourth is the post-election coalition arithmetic. Even if Likud and Yashar finish close, the larger question is which bloc can assemble a majority in parliament, and neither side has a clear path.
The campaign in Dimona illustrates a wider truth about the election. The war, the October 7 failure and the length of Netanyahu’s rule have created an opening, but openings do not translate automatically into victories. The opposition must convince voters who have identified with Likud all their lives, and the prime minister must persuade the same people that he remains the better choice. Because 13% of voters remain undecided and many Likud voters are weighing alternatives, the result is likely to turn on a small number of seats and on the combinations parties can form afterwards. Whatever happens on Tuesday, the contest has shown that the loyalty of Israel’s right-wing heartland, long taken for granted, is now open to debate.
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