2021 Election

As many as five different parties ranging from Yamina to Yesh Atid were courting Gadi Eizenkot, who has decided to hold off on a political career.

Blue and White leader Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi are the latest in the long line of former IDF chiefs who charged into the political battlefield only to be defeated.

An alliance of Labor, former Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelach, Blue and White, Meretz, Yesh Atid, and the Israelis party would ensure they all make it past the electoral threshold, but it also guarantees internal fighting as each of the parties tries to make it to the finish line as the largest party in the bloc.

Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi expected to leave politics, Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn joins Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai's party. Blue and White's "great achievement" will be "ending Netanyahu’s political path," Gantz states.

The premise that has been so deeply ingrained in Israeli consciousness, according to which Netanyahu is the only one who can lead the Right no longer stands the test of reality or the test of simple math.

In an election, the public is supposed to vote for its preferred government policies, but it doesn't look like any discussion of any serious issues will take place. Iran? The economy? The Palestinians? It's doubtful any of the politicians vying for our vote have given much thought to anything beyond how best to maintain or gain power.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Israel Katz and Likud Caucus chairman MK Haim Katz met on Monday and decided to work towards the cancellation of the primaries.

Polls conducted over the past three months continue to project that for the first time since its inception in the mid-1960s, the Labor party will fail to pass the prerequisite four-Knesset-seat electoral threshold.

While officially Shas and United Torah Judaism party officials say they intend to stand with Netanyahu, cracks have already begun to appear in the Haredi stance as this time around, the prime minister is not being challenged by secularists like Yesh Atid's Yair Lapid but rather New Hope's conservative Gideon Sa'ar and modern Orthodox Zeev Elkin.

The latest Channel 12 News survey sees Likud hold lead with 28 Knesset seats, while Blue and White plunges to just four mandates – the minimal prerequisite to get into parliament.