Eisenkot at 24 Seats, Likud at 22: The Real Story Isn't the 'Ugly Campaign' — It's That Israeli Democracy Works
Courrier International leads with 'the ugliest campaign in Israel's history.' But by fixating on the spectacle, the European press misses the point: a Maariv poll putting a brand-new party ahead of Likud, a coalition stuck at 49 seats out of 61 — and proof that in Israel, even in wartime, the ballot box remains the supreme judge.
Less than two months before the October 27 elections, Israel's campaign has commentators reaching for superlatives. "This is the ugliest campaign in the history of the State of Israel," journalist Nadav Eyal wrote in Yediot Aharonot — a line Courrier International rushed to put in its headline. The trigger: Sara Netanyahu's remarks on Channel 14 on August 31, suggesting that Yair Golan, leader of the opposition party The Democrats, had been informed of the Hamas attack before the prime minister and was "dressed and ready" on the morning of October 7.
The backlash was immediate — including on the right. Many Israelis saw with their own eyes what Golan actually did that day: driving to the scene of the attack on his own initiative to rescue people. "Sara Netanyahu did us an enormous favor," Democrats officials quipped in Ha'Aretz. The prime minister himself was forced to walk it back, conceding that there had been no "treason" on October 7 but rather a "failure" and a "misjudgment" by the army and the intelligence services.
Why the panic? The numbers tell the story. According to the Maariv survey of September 2, Yashar — the party of former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot — leads with 24 seats, ahead of Likud at 22. More importantly, the outgoing governing bloc is stuck at 49 seats, far short of the 61 needed, against 58 for the opposition. On the right, it's a free-for-all: Ben Gvir refuses an alliance with Smotrich and accuses Netanyahu of wanting "a weak Otzma Yehudit, in order to govern with Eisenkot," while Ofer Winter launches his own party, Amcha Yisrael, and Likud suspects him of being a "Trojan horse."
And this is where the European reading gets the story wrong. What Courrier International presents as evidence of Israeli degeneration is in fact proof of the opposite. Where else in the Middle East does a sitting head of government, in the middle of a war, watch a former chief of staff overtake him in the polls without anyone doubting that the verdict of the ballot box will be respected? Where else does a statement by the leader's wife trigger a cross-party outcry and a public correction from the leader himself, forced to abandon his own "stink bomb"? The brutality of this campaign is not the symptom of a sick democracy: it is the sound of a democracy that has never stopped running, even under the rockets.
The angle no one is highlighting: Eisenkot's breakthrough and Winter's emergence suggest Israel may be living through not an "ugly" campaign, but a historic realignment — one in which the generation that carried out the orders of October 7 is demanding accountability from the generation that gave them. That this reckoning is happening through ballots rather than tanks is what should be making headlines. It will be up to Israelis, and Israelis alone, to decide on October 27. That is exactly how it should be.