‘What kind of a country do you want Israel to be?’

Ashdod, Israel, last week. Ohad Zwigenberg/Associated Press     Three years ago, Israel suffered the worst attack in its history. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led gunmen killed nearly 1,200 people and took 251 people hostage. Some called it a pogrom. It shattered any sense of security Israelis had. What followed has radically reshaped the region: Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which has killed more than 75,000 Palestinians and prompted allegations of genocide that Israel has denied. Military campaigns in Lebanon and Iran. But inside Israel, the trauma of Oct. 7 itself is still fresh. Many Israelis feel there has been no reckoning with the failures that preceded the attack at home. When they go to the polls in two weeks, for the first time since the attacks, one thing many will be voting on is who they think is most likely to keep them safe. I spoke to my colleague Isabel Kershner about what many describe as the most consequential elections in the country’s history.

Isabel, it’s been three years since the Oct. 7 attacks. How have these attacks changed Israel?

Profoundly. Israel is no longer holding back. It’s going beyond its borders and occupying territory. It’s rejecting any international condemnation of its conduct in Gaza and the West Bank. You see a lot of Israelis who are forever traumatized by that one day. And that manifests in two ways: There’s a very large consensus within Israel in support of the military campaigns in Gaza, in Iran and against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

At the same time, people have lost trust in everything they previously assumed would keep them safe at home. Hamas and its allies carried out the attack. But leading up to the attack, there were years of government failure: failed policies in Gaza, failure to gather intelligence and failure to interpret available intelligence. And on the day itself, the military was slow to respond. All that has shaken people’s confidence in the state.

What does that mean for the elections coming up in two weeks’ time?

In one sense, if you look at the polls, the country is divided along very familiar lines, between those who broadly support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and those who broadly oppose him. But the stakes feel a lot higher. Many people are saying this is the most important election in Israel’s history. The question hanging over this campaign is: What kind of a country do you want Israel to be?

How so?

The current government is the most right-wing and religiously conservative that Israel has ever had. This government is still pursuing a version of the judicial reform that critics say would compromise the independence of the judiciary and which led to mass protests before Oct. 7. And this government is enabling a huge expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and has taken little action against violent extremist settlers there.

So looking ahead, people are having to decide: Do they want more of that? Or do they want to go back to a more secular liberal democracy with different priorities?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations General Assembly in September. Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Who are the main personalities and parties to watch?

On Netanyahu’s side, there are the far-right parties and the ultra-Orthodox parties. Then you have the opposition, which is fragmented. The front-runner is a center-right former general named Gadi Eisenkot, who leads the Yashar party, but overall, it’s a very mixed bag. There are right-wing parties; there are more centrist parties; the traditional Israeli left in favor of a two-state solution barely exists anymore. There are also some Arab parties. What unites most of the opposition is that they are against what they see as the zealotry of the current government and they want it to take responsibility for the failure to prevent Oct. 7. They want an independent inquiry into Oct. 7, which Netanyahu has so far blocked.

What are Netanyahu’s chances of winning another term?

Many of the polls are telling us Netanyahu’s bloc and the opposition are running neck and neck. The predominantly Jewish parties in the opposition could win a majority together with the Arab parties. But many Israeli voters, even those who don’t like Netanyahu, don’t want their government to rely on Arab parties.

At the end of the day, there’s likely going to be a drawn-out process of coalition talks before we know who can form the next government — if anyone.

Do issues around Gaza and the West Bank feature at all in the election?

Not as much as people outside of Israel might imagine. Nobody’s clamoring for Israel to withdraw from Gaza at this point. And even on the subject of the West Bank, a lot of the opposition parties are treading very carefully. They say they would rein in the extremists attacking Palestinians. But mostly they’re trying to avoid the issue for fear of alienating the soft-right voters they’re trying to win over. The only side mentioning the prospect of a Palestinian state is the pro-Netanyahu camp, which is saying that will be the outcome if it loses.

As for the international criticism, that’s barely featuring at all.

In Jerusalem last week. Ammar Awad/Reuters

We just witnessed that very dramatic FlyDubai incident in which the pilot and a group of passengers stopped the co-pilot from downing the plane. Has that entered the campaign?

Yes. Netanyahu’s critics are drawing a connection between Oct. 7 and the narrowly averted aviation disaster, saying, “Look, once again the government is responsible for security failures.” They say the Omani co-pilot should have been vetted and stopped from flying into Israel.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, has been basking in the glory of the heroism. He held a video call with the wounded pilot in hospital and met on camera with some of the passengers who rushed forward to take action. He’s been very quiet on the failure aspect.

Isabel, you’ve been covering this story for decades. What does it feel like in Israel right now?

It does feel like a critical juncture. You hear people say another four years of this and it won’t be the same country they knew. You hear people talking about leaving or thinking about whether there’s a future for their children here if things don’t change. It really does feel very fateful.