The upset in Hungary comes as Israel looks ahead to an election in the next six months, with polls showing Netanyahu facing an uphill battle to retain power. For his many critics, the results are fueling optimism for an Orban-like upset in Israel.<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cCongrats Hungary. A new chapter is on the horizon for Israel too. It\u2019s time for everyone who believes in a Jewish and democratic Israel to stand together and commit to that shared vision,\u201d wrote UnXeptable, the Israeli opposition movement that launched in response to Netanyahu\u2019s efforts to weaken the judiciary\u2019s independence. \u201cA brighter future is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n \t On the right, too, the comparison was clear. In the hours after Orban\u2019s defeat, one of the anti-Netanyahu protest movement\u2019s most recognizable slogans, \u201cIsrael will not become Hungary,\u201d was repurposed, ironically, by voices on the right as reassurance that Israel would not follow Hungary\u2019s political trajectory.<\/p>\n Olga Deutsch, vice president of pro-Israel watchdog NGO Monitor and a researcher at the right-leaning Misgav Institute, said the discussion in Israel has been overwhelmingly inward-looking.<\/p>\n Israelis \u201cview news from abroad through very local lenses,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is much less debate on whether Orban had an amazing human rights track record inside of Hungary, or even about the Russia versus Ukraine discourse in the context of the EU. Rather, they debate his loss in the context of what that will mean for Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n One strain of implications revolves around whether Magyar will be as supportive of Israel and its leader as Orban was. Early indications suggest that the answer is no. After Netanyahu suggested that Magyar had invited him back to Hungary this fall, Magyar announced that he would abide by the compact creating the International Criminal Court, meaning that Netanyahu cannot visit without facing arrest.<\/p>\n Tom Gross, a journalist with expertise on Middle East issues, said in an interview that he believed Israel was functioning as an \u201ceasy sacrificial lamb\u201d for Magyar as the new Hungarian government seeks to unlock frozen EU funds.<\/p>\n \t \u201cEven though Magyar may not personally have animosity towards the State of Israel, Israel \u2014 and in particular Bibi \u2014 will be the easiest sacrificial lamb to offer up to win over Brussels on other issues,\u201d Gross said.<\/p>\n Yonatan Levi, a researcher at the London School of Economics and a fellow at Molad-The Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy, a Jerusalem-based policy group focused on democratic institutions, said the \u201cintense public attention\u201d to the Hungarian vote among Israelis was unusual for reasons going well beyond the Hungary-Israel relationship.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t remember any elections in a foreign country in recent years, except for the United States, that Israelis followed as closely as the Hungarian elections,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He attributed that focus to the widespread perception that Hungary has seemed like a blueprint for Netanyahu and his partners.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of the laws and reforms that allowed Viktor Orban to take control of the courts, eliminate the free media, and completely politicize the public service have also been promoted in Israel in recent years,\u201d Levi said. \u201cSo until now, Israelis have looked at Hungary to understand what might happen in Israel if it continues on its current path of democratic retreat.\u201d<\/p>\n Suddenly, they have been given a glimpse of a different future, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, thanks to the dramatic developments of recent weeks, Israelis are examining Hungary closely precisely to understand how populist leaders such as Netanyahu and Orban, who are gradually eroding democracy in their own countries, can be defeated,\u201d Levi said. \u201cFrom a threatening model from which to learn what to be wary of, Hungary has become a source of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Exactly how Israel might replicate Hungary\u2019s results is less clear. The two countries have different electoral systems, such that Orban and the man who defeated him, Peter Magyar, together garnered about 85% of the vote, with Magyar\u2019s Tisza party drawing an absolute majority.<\/p>\n In Israel, there are 18 political parties, with most polls showing 11 currently polling at the level that they would achieve seats in parliament if the election were held today. No party comes close to a majority and while polling currently shows the opposition bloc likely to be able to form a majority coalition, it would do so only narrowly. The pool includes not just right, center and left but religious Jewish parties and an Arab party \u2014\u00a0a much wider span than in Hungary.<\/p>\n Various opposition leaders have taken the opportunity to suggest that they are Israel\u2019s version of Magyar, a conservative who came up in Orban\u2019s Fidesz party and broke with him only in recent years.<\/p>\n \u201cI see that all the trumpeters and conspiracy enthusiasts are now explaining that Orban lost in Hungary because of the \u2018global left.\u2019 They missed the fact that the election winner, P\u00e9ter Magyar, is far from left-wing,\u201d tweeted Yair Lapid, the head of the Yesh Atid party who was briefly prime minister after negotiating a deal to seize power from Netanyahu\u2019s Likud party in 2021.<\/p>\n Lapid went on: \u201cThe man grew up in Orban\u2019s party and defines himself as a \u2018conservative liberal\u2019\u2014which is the Hungarian version of center on democratic issues and economic right-wing (yes, like Yesh Atid).\u201d<\/p>\n Yair Golan, who leads the liberal Democrats, which is heading toward its first election, said he, too, saw hope in Hungary.<\/p>\n \u201cOrban tried everything: he took over the media, weakened the judicial system, and tried to create a reality in which he couldn\u2019t be replaced. But in the end, the Hungarian people had their say at the ballot box. The citizens proved that no poison machine and no cheap populism can defeat the simple human desire to live in a free society, clean of corruption and functioning,\u201d he tweeted. \u201cFor us, this is a living reminder of what\u2019s about to happen right here.\u201d<\/p>\n \t For some observers, the lesson from Hungary is that Netanyahu\u2019s opponents should look to his own camp for a candidate to unseat him. Gross said that when it comes to Orban, Magyar \u201cshares his political outlook and comes from inside the Fidesz party establishment.\u201d<\/p>\n That, he said, points to a similar dynamic in Israel. Israelis may be tired of Netanyahu because of the longevity of his time in office, Gross said, but he has already \u201cwon the battle of ideas in the sense that the only likely successor to Netanyahu would be somebody who shares those ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n For the opposition, he said, \u201ctheir best bet of unseating Netanyahu is finding someone else, such as Naftali Bennett, and rallying around him,\u201d rather than trying to challenge those ideas directly.<\/p>\n Perhaps the closest cognate to Magyar in Israel, Bennett was the other half of the power-sharing arrangement that briefly knocked Netanyahu out of power, but unlike Lapid, he started his career in politics in Netanyahu\u2019s party \u2014\u00a0and while he left it sooner than Magyar left Fidesz, he remained in Netanyahu\u2019s coalition until 2021.<\/p>\n \t Bennett is a center-right politician who aligns with Netanyahu\u2019s outlook on some major policy issues but distances himself from Netanyahu\u2019s politics, which he says are filled with \u201cpoison\u201d and cronyism. He has been hiring technocrats who say they can build a government without the corruption that Netanyahu has been accused of fostering. And like Magyar, he has been stumping across his tiny country, working determinedly to build support for an election in which he is rising in the polls.<\/p>\n Bennett did not publicly comment on Orban\u2019s loss \u2014\u00a0but he sent a powerful signal the same day when he announced the recruitment of two prominent women who previously served as government ministry director-generals, Keren Terner and Liran Avisar Ben Horin, to his party.<\/p>\n The comparison has limits. Bennett has already served a term as prime minister, giving him a track record and public perception far more fixed than Magyar\u2019s. Unlike with Magyar, Bennett\u2019s break with his political mentor required allying himself with ideological enemies, making it far less likely that he can peel off votes from Netanyahu.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now it seems like Bennett is able to take a lot of votes from the center left but not necessarily a lot from the right wing,\u201d Ofir Gutzelson, a founder of UnXeptable, said during the group\u2019s webinar<\/a> last week unpacking the election results.<\/p>\n The Israeli journalist Yair Navot said on the webinar that Bennett could take a page from Magyar and negotiate with other parties to form an informal coalition ahead of the election, which is not yet scheduled but must take place before the end of October.<\/p>\n That way, Israelis would be able to vote for their own preferred parties, rather than have to compromise on their beliefs, even as it would be clear going into the election that Bennett would be the prime minister if the coalition prevailed. But he said he understood that such an arrangement would be challenging in Israel, with such a wide range of ideologies at play.<\/p>\n \t Navot offered the example of Gadi Eisenkot, the former IDF chief whose son was killed in Gaza, as another figure who could potentially play the same role \u2014 without the added baggage of a previous term.<\/p>\n But Navot said he thought Israelis should be focused on tactics as much as who is running. \u201cIf there is one important lesson to learn from Hungary for Israelis, for Israel, it is first of all the importance of the turnout,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Hungary\u2019s turnout was historically high, near 80%. Turnout in Israel\u2019s 2022 election, the most recent, was about 70%. Since then, emigration has spiked, particularly among young families and more liberal Israelis who have felt alienated by years of war and the country\u2019s internal political fights. Unlike Hungary, Israel does not allow absentee voting, so those voters will need to fly back to Israel \u2014\u00a0buying historically expensive tickets in the process \u2014 if they want to participate in the coming election.<\/p>\n But some who want to see Israel pull a Hungary say there\u2019s no need for left-wing voters to get involved.<\/p>\n In the Facebook group Right-Wing People Against the Conduct of this Government, the psychologist Chen Herman drew approval with a video<\/a> in which she proclaimed that the Hungarian election results were \u201ca celebration, not in a mystical sense but in the most practical sense.\u201d<\/p>\n \t She said Hungarians had not gotten carried away in their vision for what the election could accomplish \u2014\u00a0and in doing so had been able to deflect the same criticism that anti-Netanyahu Israelis tend to face from his party acolytes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe voters in Hungary chose between right and right. They understood that to beat the system, they needed to step outside themselves and vote strategically. What were people trying to say about them? That they\u2019re traitors to security? That they\u2019re ungrateful? That their leader is Trump\u2019s best buddy? \u2026 Sound familiar?\u201d Herman said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut they decided to choose a government that isn\u2019t corrupt, and that\u2019s why it worked. They didn\u2019t get scattered. They didn\u2019t ask for too much. Simple,\u201d she went on. \u201cSo if there\u2019s anything to learn from the Hungarians, it\u2019s to get grounded, to understand reality. If there\u2019s a majority here holding right-wing views, and it might affect the elections, you just need to choose: corrupt right-wing or non-corrupt right-wing.\u201d<\/p>\n With at most six months to go before Israel\u2019s election, it\u2019s not clear how shaken Netanyahu himself is. He waited hours before congratulating Magyar, but some of his ministers embraced Magyar sooner.<\/p>\n \u201cNetanyahu\u2019s worst nightmare is not losing a friend in Budapest,\u201d Jonathan Meta wrote on Substack. \u201cIt is watching Hungarian voters do something he has devoted considerable energy to making sure Israeli voters never quite manage to do themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Netanyahu and Orban were more than just leading avatars of the global right, along with Trump. They also share staffers and even a pollster, the conservative American John McLaughlin.<\/p>\n The night before the election, the Israeli journalist Amit Segal, who is seen as close and friendly to Netanyahu, invoked past Israeli elections in which media polling \u2014 long criticized<\/a> for being out of sync with voter behavior \u2014 failed spectacularly in capturing the final result<\/a>.<\/p>\n He noted that McLaughlin had defied the consensus of mainstream Hungarian media by projecting a victory for Orb\u00e1n\u2019s Fidesz party. \u201cSounds familiar, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d Segal said during a broadcast in which he indicated both that he believed Orban could prevail but that if the Hungarian leader did not, it could bode poorly for Netanyahu this fall.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AP26102713611303-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tA man waves a Hungarian flag as he celebrates in the streets after the announcement of partial results of the Hungarian parliamentary election in Budapest, Hungary, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo\/Denes Erdos)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AP26102749007667-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tPeter Magyar, the leader of the opposition Tisza party waves a national flag after a parliamentary election in Budapest, Hungary, on April 12, 2026. (AP Photo\/Darko Bandic)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AP26102742910597-e1776045164221-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tSupporters of Peter Magyar, the leader of the opposition Tisza party celebrate after a parliamentary election in Budapest, Hungary, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo\/Darko Bandic)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/bibi-orban-poster-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tA protester holds up a sign during a demonstration against the Israeli government near the Prime Minister\u2019s residence in Jerusalem on July 25, 2020.(AHMAD GHARABLI\/AFP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/F260122AVS117-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tFormer prime minister Naftali Bennett speaks during a conference in Herzliya on November 19, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel\/ Flash90)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/F260106AVS0017-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tGadi Eisenkot attends a conference at the Academic College in Tel Aviv, January 6, 2026. (Avshalom Sassoni\/Flash90)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/F260411FFF306-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tIsraelis attend a protest against the multiple rounds of conflict and the Netanyahu government in Tel Aviv, April 11, 2026. (Flash90)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AP26102703840214-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tHungary\u2019s Prime Minister Viktor Orban addresses supporters after receiving the preliminary results of a parliamentary election in Budapest, Hungary, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo\/Petr David Josek)<\/p>\n