JERUSALEM — Drawn-out uncertainty over Israel’s election results is benefiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, despite losing his mandate, will remain in power until a new government is formed — a process that has taken weeks in recent Israeli election cycles.

For opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot to oust Netanyahu, Eisenkot would have to break a campaign promise and join with the Arab parties, who are likely to have won an unprecedented 17 to 19 seats in the Knesset — depending on the final vote tallies.

And yet, Eisenkot and most of his Yashar party’s opposition allies have not indicated they would break their promises to exclude both Arab parties — the Joint List and Ra’am — from any government he leads.

Netanyahu is capitalizing on his opposition’s political dilemma, now fomenting distrust in the Israeli electorate by accusing the Arab parties of stealing the election from him “through serious criminal offenses of bribery, threats, violence, forgeries, and the use of prohibited software to mobilize voters.”

On Wednesday, Netanyahu’s Likud party announced it was providing the police, Shin Bet intelligence service and the Central Elections Committee with “hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence regarding election theft in many Arab polling stations” and demanded an investigation. The Arab parties have not publicly commented.

Meanwhile, the Arab parties are signaling they are ready to join a coalition to replace Netanyahu.

“We are ready and prepared to pave the way for the ousting of the Netanyahu government,” Joint List leader Yousef Jabareen wrote on X. “Against a government of bloodshed, against a politics of supremacy, racism, and exclusion, we offer a completely different alternative.”

Jabareen proposed a “true and equal” Jewish-Arab partnership.

But even though the Arab vote could seal Netanyahu’s fate by pushing his opposition bloc across the 61-seat threshold for a majority, even the more moderate Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas — who tapped a Jewish former minister and lawmaker to rank second on his slate — is palatable to most of the opposition coalition.

Eisenkot set four conditions for any party joining his coalition, including declaring Hamas as a terrorist organization that needs to be disarmed and destroyed. In an interview on election night, Abbas refused.

“I condemned what they did time and time again,” he told i24 News, but he said he needed certain conditions met before he disavowed the terrorist organization. “I wanted to see if there’s an option for a government, then we’ll deliberate it,” he said.

Yashar Knesset member Lianne Polk-David said not supporting all four principles is a nonstarter.

”We cannot have any party in our government that does not support our very core basic values,” she told MS NOW. “If that changes, if any party on any side decides to go ahead and support our values, then things could change, and we are open for discussions. But those core values, we’re not going to compromise on them.”

Israeli political coalitions have relied on Arab parties only twice, most recently in 2021. Both times, the move sparked a backlash that emboldened the right and led to the governments’ collapse.

“We can’t have a repeat of that, and we learn from that,” said Reuven Hazan, political science professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

“You cannot form a government that mathematically is skating on thin ice, because to undo what this government has done, you need stability and you need time in office, you need to give Netanyahu the notion that he’s finished, that he has to leave,” Hazan said.

“The Arabs, if they are the kingmakers,” he added. “They assume too much power, and Israeli society might not be willing to give it to them.”

Some in Eisenkot’s coalition are willing to take the risk.

“The picture of reality must teach us one resounding lesson: We have no future here if we don’t stop being afraid. And if we don’t stop with the racism,” The Democrats’ leader Yair Golan wrote on X. “We must no longer accept Netanyahu’s racist division between Jewish votes and Arab votes.”

“We have an opportunity to form a government of change in partnership with Israel’s Arab citizens,” Golan added. “A government that will serve all Israeli citizens.”

Israel’s two million Palestinian citizens turned out at nearly 80%, reportedly driven by outrage against the policies of Netanyahu and his far-right allies Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, leading to roughly double the seats they had in the last Knesset.

Arab-Israeli Fouid Abu-Gosh was one of those voters. His cousin was killed in Gaza in an airstrike days after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

Voting in the election, he said, “was an emotional feeling. It was mixed with pride and concern at the same time.”

“They basically turned us and they turned the Arab representative to monsters, to mean enemies, while we are part of this state, we are citizens. We face the same destiny. We face the same threat that the rest of the people of Israel are facing,” Abu-Gosh said.

“We are part of the state,” he added. “You cannot ignore us.”

Josh Einiger contributed reporting.

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KFAR AZA, Israel — Israeli American Keith Siegel doesn’t do politics, he said. Even, and especially, after he was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and held hostage in Gaza for 484 days.

But when asked about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closing argument going into Tuesday’s voting that only he can keep Israel safe, Siegel simply said, “I don’t agree.”

On the eve of the first election since then, Siegel, now 67, made a rare visit to his home in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz a mile from the Gaza border where 80 people were murdered and 19 were taken captive by Hamas on Oct. 7.

As automatic gunfire and mortar rounds went off in the distance near the Palestinian territory, Siegel said he wanted the devastation and trauma to end.

“I hate war and I hate killing and I hate death, and unnecessary death, from my point of view,” he said. “I don’t only think about us Israelis, I also think about children in Gaza that were born into this reality they didn’t choose.”

The gruesome Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas fundamentally reshaped Israeli politics — and created a formidable challenger to Netanyahu: Gadi Eisenkot, his former Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff turned rival who could be the one to oust the longtime prime minister from power.

In December 2023, two months into the war against Hamas, Eisenkot’s 25-year-old son, Gal, was killed while fighting in Gaza. Six months later, Eisenkot resigned from Netanyahu’s emergency war Cabinet, citing a lack of strategy to end the conflict.

Eisenkot’s personal loss motivated him to run against his former boss, his grief resonating with Israelis still reeling from that day and the ensuing war fronts. He has promised an independent inquiry into the failures surrounding the Oct. 7 attacks.

Siegel said he is not focused on blame, but he — like many Israelis — wants answers as to what went wrong leading up to and in the aftermath of the attacks.

“This enormous failure, people that were in charge need to be held accountable or need to be responsible for what happened, primarily in order to do everything possible that something like that won’t happen again,” Siegel said.

A recent poll from Israel’s Channel 12 found responsibility for Oct. 7 was likely to influence the decisions of 70% of voters, with 83% saying Netanyahu bears at least some degree of responsibility and only 8% saying he doesn’t at all.

Even after the results of the election come in, it may take weeks for a new prime minister to be chosen, which likely will require multiple political parties to come together in a coalition.

On Saturday night, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square for an anti-Netanyahu demonstration, bringing together voters across the opposition “change” bloc.

First-time voter Tal Schneider said the attack by Hamas made him realize having a healthy government is “life or death.”

”It’s dangerous,” said Schneider, 18. “I’m going to serve in the army, and if I will be in a never-ending war, I don’t want to serve. But I want to serve, I want to protect my people, but this government is so corrupt that it will be impossible.”

Maya Katorza first became politically active in early 2023, protesting Netanyahu’s push to overhaul Israel’s judicial system. But Oct. 7 opened her eyes.

“It was really shocking,” she said. “Made it much more like our life depends on it.”

“There is a power here I personally didn’t feel before,” said Katorza, wearing a shirt featuring the Hebrew lyric, “I have no other country,” which she got from a restaurant helping Israelis evacuated from kibbutzes attacked on Oct. 7.

Throughout Israel, communities came together to fill the gaps left by the Netanyahu government in the aftermath of the attacks, from transportation to food supply to counseling.

Tami Lubitsch, a clinical psychologist and dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, is offering volunteer mental health services from Alaska to Israelis impacted by Oct. 7.

“The country is falling apart,” Lubitsch said. “It’s just a government that can’t do anything right, and that’s kind of the nature of it. When you devote yourself to the mentality of war and hatred, it’s gonna affect everything. They’re building a culture of hate, and if that would continue, the very moral foundation of Israel would be gone.”

Still, not everyone places the blame on Netanyahu.

Ely Ram, who was serving in the IDF on Oct. 7 and has spent time in Gaza, blames the “bad people” of Hamas and said without Netanyahu, Israelis would not be allowed to protect their country.

“I’m afraid,” Ram, 24, said at a Tel Aviv bar a few blocks away from the massive anti-Netanyahu rally. “Because the other side doesn’t want Israel’s security.”

The wars fought on multiple fronts by Israel since Oct. 7 — in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran — have put a strain on the Israeli military, making the debate over requiring military service for the country’s roughly 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men a defining issue in this election.

According to a September poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, 72% of Israelis want the ultra-Orthodox Haredim, who avoid military service with religious study of the Torah, to be drafted.

“It’s the fact that you can go into Gaza as a combat soldier not knowing if you’ll come back alive or how long we’ll be staying there because the prime minister doesn’t allow recruiting religious people, so the amount of soldiers are fewer and fewer and fewer,” said first-time voter Tal Pinkas, 18, who is supporting retired Gen. Yair Golan and The Democrats.

Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, thinks Netanyahu is making a “catastrophic mistake” by hoping the people of Israel will have short memories.

“We’ve had in these four years an endless amount of events that have shaken Israeli society to the core,” he said, citing judicial overhaul protests, Oct. 7, the war in Gaza and the Iran war. ”Israeli society is spent. It’s tired. It’s not post-trauma. It’s going through trauma still.”

These events, Hazan said, have moved Israelis in two directions: to the political right and becoming more religious. While both shifts should be beneficial to Netanyahu, if he loses power, a public outcry for more accountability around the Oct. 7 attacks would have played a significant role.

Katorza, who supports Golan and The Democrats, is worried about Israel’s reputation on the world stage.

“I think about all foreign affairs of Israel going down the drain with the politics of this government,” she said. “There was never a time that Israel was so unliked and so unsupported by both sides of the political map in the United States, the Republicans and the Democrats.”

A test for Netanyahu

The Netanyahu government’s response to Oct. 7 has prompted international criticism and condemnation. On Monday, a United Nations report concluded that Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank and is continuing to commit genocide in Gaza, even amid a so-called ceasefire. The Israeli government rejected the U.N. report, calling it a “misinformation campaign to demonize the State of Israel and portray its very existence as criminal.”

More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed during the Gaza war, according to estimates from the Hamas-run health ministry, which U.N. agencies consider to be accurate. UNRWA estimates that about 82% of structures in Gaza have been damaged and about two-thirds of those have been destroyed.

But if you ask Israelis across the political spectrum, many reject claims of genocide in Gaza, arguing Israel has no other choice and works to mitigate civilian casualties.

Shay Tiram, who is voting for Bezalel Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionist Party, said starting on Oct. 8, Netanyahu did “a very good job” and called accusations of genocide a “hoax” and “brainwash.”

“We know that we are a nation of peace, and we didn’t choose this war,” said Tiram, 35. “But you attack us, we have to protect ourselves … We need to displace them.”

A choice for Israelis

In the closing days of the election, many voters saw the race as a choice between the two front-runners for prime minister, Netanyahu and Eisenkot.

While both Netanyahu and Eisenkot agree on certain policy issues, including opposition to a two-state solution, there is daylight between them in a few key areas: the West Bank, President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan and military service for Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews.

“There will be a change of policy, but it doesn’t usually meet the standards of what outsiders see as a change of policy,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli pollster and political analyst.

“Netanyahu and his coalition want to annex Gaza, they want to rebuild settlements, and they want Palestinians to leave,” she said. “Eisenkot is not going into it with quite the same convictions.”

Supporters of Eisenkot believe he could provide a fresh slate as a less polarizing personality, even with similar hawkish politics to Netanyahu.

In his closing argument at a rally in Tel Aviv on Sunday, Eisenkot vowed to deliver on his campaign promises on Oct. 7 accountability, ultra-Orthodox military participation and ending Hamas rule of Gaza within 18 months.

“Anyone who believes that ‘our Israel’ can survive another four years like this is operating under a dangerous delusion,” he told his supporters. “Draft evasion, failure, negligence, and lies—this is the path of the ‘government of draft-dodgers.’ If we continue down this road, Israel will very soon cease to be the country we know. This is a final wake-up call.”

Netanyahu, for his part, has contrasted Eisenkot’s lack of diplomatic experience with his own long-standing relationships with world leaders.

Netanyahu has repeatedly highlighted his endorsement from Trump, emphasizing the need to finish the war with Iran, which he has been characterizing in increasingly apocalyptic terms, including with an artificial intelligence-generated photo of a nuclear bomb cloud over Tel Aviv.

Netanyahu has also continued to try to depict any increase in the political power of Arab Israelis as a threat to Israel’s identity.

On social media, Netanyahu described an opposition government that could include Mansour Abbas, leader of the Arab Ra’am party, as one that “robs Israel of its Jewish identity and concedes and bows to our enemies or a strong right-wing government that works to protect the state of Israel, that will finish the job and remove the Iranian threat once and for all.”

With Arab Israelis voting at a record high rate, they could become critical in the coalition building process if neither Netanyahu or Eisenkot reach the needed 61-seat Knesset majority outright, which is unlikely based on polling.

Arab leaders have historically been excluded from the Israeli government — but some voters say that should change.

Leon Tsi — whose childhood friend was brutally murdered by Hamas at the Nova Festival massacre on Oct. 7 — said Abbas should have a seat at the table should Tsi’s preferred candidate, Eisenkot, win.

Israeli politicians often tout Israel as a rare example of a democracy in the Middle East, Tsi, 35, said, “so act like one.”

“There are different kinds of Judaism, different kinds of Muslim, different kinds of groups,” he added. “And we have to recognize it.”

Josh Einiger in Kfar Aza contributed reporting.

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TEL AVIV, Israel — On the eve of Election Day in Israel, crowds of volunteers and politicians gathered at the Tel Aviv airport on Monday to offer a hero’s welcome with balloons, signs and songs. The guests of honor? Israelis living abroad arriving from the United States to vote.

Sara Lerner flew in from New York for one night only.

“For me, it’s really critical that the country make a change,” Lerner told MS NOW fresh off her flight.

Lerner, 41, said she’s not sure if she can make a difference, but she felt she had to try.

“It’s deeply important to me that Israel find a path forward that is more realistic than a path of just complete global isolation, and to me, that’s just — it’s worth making the trip out here,” she said.

The pivotal election is seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose tenure has seen widespread protests — in Israel, opposing his push to overhaul Israel’s judicial system and failure to adequately prevent and respond to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas; in the U.S., opposing alleged war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel does not allow absentee voting, so in order to have a voice in their leaders, Israelis have to make the journey back.

And for this election, Israelis in the U.S. are returning in droves, many citing a global rise in antisemitism and the need to repair Israel’s standing in the world.

According to the latest data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, roughly 810,000 of Israel’s 7.3 million registered voters live abroad.

The AID Coalition’s Fly&Vote operation, a nonpartisan effort to help Americans travel to Israel for the election, estimates at least 67,000 Israelis abroad are expected to return to cast their ballots on Tuesday.

Netanyahu’s Likud party filed a challenge with Israel’s Central Elections Committee, attempting to block Fly&Vote’s efforts, which resulted in a settlement earlier this month in which the organization agreed not to subsidize plane ticket costs or organize additional flights.

“This initiative is about participation, not persuasion,” said Batell Blaise-Sultanik, executive director of the AID Coalition, wearing a T-shirt with the words, “It’s so good to have you,” written in Hebrew.

“Democracy works when people show up, full stop,” Blaise-Sultanik said.

It’s not just change bloc voters turning out — throughout the afternoon, a steady stream of ultra-Orthodox Jews passed through the arrivals terminal, representing a critical voting bloc that is part of Netanyahu’s coalition and may be key to his ability to hold on to power.

Around three hundred anti-Netanyahu voters arrived on a flight from San Francisco organized by UnXeptable, an organization of Israeli expats focused on addressing what they say are threats to Israeli democracy.

“We saw Israel becoming more and more turning into a more religious, fundamentalistic, fascist government, and what’s happening in Israel is not necessarily what all Israelis, of course, want,” said UnXeptable founder Offir Gutelzon, who helped mobilize voters from cities around the world.

For Gutelzon, the pilgrimage is the final stop to preserve hope for Israel’s future.

“It’s the last mile to make sure that we have other people taking the wheels of this train, and then working together to rebuild the reputation of Israel, to rebuild the U.S.-Israel relationship, to rebuild the path for peace, and to rebuild Israel as a thriving democracy,” he said.

Internal affairs — like judicial reform, an independent commission inquiry into the Oct. 7 attack, and national security — are the highest priorities for most Israelis, according to polls. But Israelis in the U.S. are keenly aware of the souring of American support for Netanyahu and their country.

David Denco, who lived in Jerusalem for eight years before moving to New York with his wife and two daughters in recent months, wants to repair the perception of Israel and Jewish people after experiencing antisemitism in the states.

Denco said he plans to vote for Netanyhu’s main rival, former Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, who quit Netanyahu’s Cabinet over what he said was a lack of strategy in Gaza.

“It’s so important to me to vote because I think this year it’s really, really going to change the whole situation of Israel,” Denco said. “And I think it’s gonna maybe even change how the world will look on us.”

A May 2026 Pew Research Center survey found 62% of American adults had an unfavorable view of the Israeli government, up from 43% in 2022.

Polls leading up to Election Day indicate a true toss-up between Netanyahu’s coalition and that of his opposition, led by challenger Eisenkot.

If neither reaches an outright or coalition 61-seat majority in the Knesset, new elections could be called, with the prime minister remaining in power until then — a fear for some who have spent thousands of dollars to vote this time around.

Shimrit Braun Kamin, who moved to the U.S. around 13 years ago, spent $1,500 on the round-trip flight with UnXeptable. She said the expat turnout would not be the same as another time around.

“I think everyone knows that this round, everything is at stake and we must do whatever we can to mobilize Israelis from all around the country to vote,” Kamin, 47, said, adding that she hopes the scenes of voters from overseas arriving at the airport will encourage local Israelis to do their part, too.

Josh Einiger contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.

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METULA, Israel — Even amid a ceasefire, the sounds of war still reverberate through the countryside along the Israel-Lebanon border.

Few places have felt the ripple effects of the Iran war and the brunt of Hezbollah more than Metula, the northernmost community in Israel. Surrounded by Lebanon on three sides, the scenic town is uniquely exposed to attacks by the Iranian proxy group.

Until recently, an American flag flew beside Israeli flags in Metula’s town center. Then Mayor David Azoulay took it down.

He is that offended by President Donald Trump.

“I have massive gratitude to him because he really seriously helped release all the hostages” held by Hamas, Azoulay told MS NOW. “And he supports Israel in a lot of ways.”

“But we are not a banana republic, let us vote for whoever we want and don’t interfere with that,” Azoulay said.

Azoulay said Trump’s failure to finish the job in Iran and interference in Israeli elections with his eleventh-hour endorsement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu soured him on the American president.

“You have to understand that this regime in Iran sends its tentacles all over: Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis,” Azoulay said. “I fully support the fact that this regime has to go.”

“We started this campaign together and regrettably, Trump is talking a lot and doing less,” he said.

Both Trump and Netanyahu have threatened to escalate attacks on Iran in recent weeks, with the U.S. leader hesitant to take action that could negatively impact his political party in the midterms.

After the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, most of Metula’s 2,500 residents were evacuated amid frequent missile and rocket bombardment from Hezbollah in northern Israel. Ninety percent of its homes have been destroyed or damaged.

In March, following the joint U.S.-Israel attack on Iran, the Israeli military invaded Lebanon and pushed the threat from Hezbollah away from the border — causing extensive damage to infrastructure and civilian casualties in Lebanon in the process.

Over the past year and a half, the locals of Metula have returned, bringing life — and hope — back to the community. But the longer the Iran war drags on and U.S.-led peace talks between Israel and Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah remain precarious, the longer it will take for Metula to fully rebuild.

“We are still at war. … We try to lead a normal town life,” Azoulay said just steps away from a bustling cafe filled with families and kids running around.

Hagai Rosenbaum, a fruit farmer whose family has lived in Metula for generations, said the Netanyahu government should be doing more to help, especially when it comes to clearing remnants of rockets and unexploded ordnance from his farmland.

“A lot of cluster bombs were falling in Metula, and actually, I’m afraid,” he said, standing in his kiwi orchard amid peak harvest season. “Every time I walk, I look down more than before.”

Rosenbaum said locals encounter debris and parts of Iranian rockets “all the time.” Minutes later, he pointed out a mangled, charred piece of an exploded projectile.

As he walked through the rows of kiwi plants, the sound of a mortar round cracked throughout the valley.

“This is normal,” Rosenbaum reassured reporters with him, adding the jarring sound came from the Israeli military firing toward Lebanon, where destroyed structures were visible on the distant hills surrounding the harvest.

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TEL AVIV, Israel — Along a major road in Tel Aviv, a digital billboard features a smiling President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu with a Hebrew message that reads: “Vote Netanyahu! Only with him will we finish the job.”

Even if Trump never actually said those words, when Trump endorsed Netanyahu nine days before Israel’s upcoming election, the sentiment was similar.

Given the ongoing war with Iran, Trump is reluctant to build a brand-new relationship with an Israeli prime minister he does not know as well.

“If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so,” Trump wrote in his glowing Truth Social post backing Netanyahu.

Trump called Netanyahu “an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

It was the first time a U.S. president had explicitly backed a candidate for Israeli prime minister — another example of Trump departing from the longstanding American tradition of not publicly endorsing candidates in foreign elections.

Like Trump’s barnstorming efforts to save the candidacies of Republicans running in midterms in the U.S., the elections in Israel on Tuesday will be another test of the power of Trump’s endorsement.

During Trump’s first time in office, his popularity in Israel grew as he recognized Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights, helped move the Israeli capital and U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and brokered the Abraham Accords.

His securing of a deal with Hamas to release all remaining hostages held in Gaza — after Netanyahu faced criticism for not prioritizing the lives of Israeli hostages over eliminating Hamas leaders — also burnished his legacy with the Israeli population.

While once widely popular in Israel, public opinion of Trump has recently taken a hit, in large part due to the memorandum of understanding with Iran he signed in June.

“I’m, right now, at 99% in Israel,” Trump boasted in May. By July, Israeli confidence in Trump hit a record low: Only 7% of Israelis had a “great deal” of confidence in Trump, with 45% saying they have no confidence, according to a poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute.

In contrast, the first survey in March after the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran recorded 34% were very confident in Trump, compared to 20% who were not. In February, prior to the Iran conflict, 73% of Israelis said Trump was on track to become one of the best or an above-average president.

Former U.S. diplomats and officials, who were surprised by the endorsement, say despite Trump’s frustrations with Netanyahu, he could benefit from the familiar.

“Let’s be very clear: Trump is for Trump, Netanyahu is an instrument,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Arab-Israeli negotiator at the State Department who worked for several presidential administrations.

“I think Iran is really important here,” Miller said, underscoring the focus of Trump’s endorsement post. “Trump thinks he can maneuver and manipulate Netanyahu, and it’s the devil you know.”

And Trump knows Netanyahu well.

“There is an ease of working with the Netanyahu government, and I’m not saying this is good for democracy, I’m just saying they have been around for so long that we know a lot of the players and people,” a former senior Trump administration official told MS NOW, granted anonymity to discuss diplomatic relationships.

If Netanyahu loses, Trump will have to learn how to work with his rival: Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israeli military chief who leads the centrist Yashar party.

“What you’re talking about here is personality differences, not major ideological differences or even major policy changes,” the former official said, noting the significance if Eisenkot is able to pull off the political feat of building a winning coalition as a political newcomer. “If he can do that, then that’s a pretty good indicator that he’s going to be, or he can be, a savvy player on the world stage with the U.S.”

If Netanyahu’s Likud party does not secure a majority of Knesset seats, weeks or even months of coalition-building will ensue, with the possibility of new elections.

A senior State Department official told MS NOW the Trump administration is prepared for every eventuality of the Israeli elections, including a stalemate.

“We are committed to remaining close partners. We’re going to be able to work constructively with whoever comes out on the other side of the election,” the senior official said.

The Israeli elections could have major implications for America’s primary interests in Israel — Trump’s Gaza peace plan, security in the West Bank, and Israel-Lebanon negotiations — though current and former officials expect those challenges to remain regardless of the results.

But a new Israeli leader could potentially improve the worsening mood toward Israel among the American public and give pro-Israel congressional Democrats cover if Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Gaza, is gone.

“If there’s a change in the government and the prime minister, what it does is it stops the bleeding,” said Dennis Ross, who was the key U.S. envoy in the Middle East peace process during the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. “It reminds everybody that Israel is a democracy, the only one in the Middle East.”

Natan Peretz and his wife Hadas have felt the expanded effects of the Iran war firsthand. The parents of three children live in Shlomi, a small town in northern Israel close to the Lebanon border facing a near constant threat of drone and missile attacks from Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy.

Peretz, 42, had mixed feelings about Trump. He said the Iran war has been “horrible for us.”

”Look, he’s a crazy guy,” he said, speaking to MS NOW in Jerusalem. “He can change his mind in a second.”

Hadas Peretz, 39, once had a positive view of Trump and his support for Israel — until he attempted to negotiate an end to the Iran war without Israel’s involvement. “You cannot talk with terrorists,” she said.

The Peretzes plan to vote against Netanyahu, who they say does not care about helping the people in Israel.

Shimon Friedman and Shragie Strauss, who both moved to Israel from New York, still see Trump as one of Israel’s strongest supporters. They spoke to MS NOW in Jerusalem.

“I used to be actually anti-[Trump], but right now, I’m pro-Israel and I feel like the left wing has gone very far, so I feel like he’s on the right side,” said Friedman, 30.

Strauss was unbothered by the recently tumultuous relationship between Trump and Netanyahu.

“So far, he’s definitely seemed like he stuck up for us a lot,” said Strauss, 26. “Even though at points he’s cursed him out, but I feel like he’s done that to everybody.”

Julia Jester reported this story from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

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