{"id":651275,"date":"2026-10-19T17:42:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T17:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/651275\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T17:42:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T17:42:19","slug":"on-iran-israels-opposition-is-even-more-hawkish-than-netanyahu-israel-election-2026-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/651275\/","title":{"rendered":"On Iran, Israel\u2019s opposition is even more hawkish than Netanyahu | Israel Election 2026 News"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the rest of the world, the Israeli PM is often blamed for the Iran war. His opponents say he hasn\u2019t been tough enough with Tehran.<\/p>\n

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Published On 19 Oct 202619 Oct 2026<\/p>\n

When Israel launched a sweeping military assault on Iran with the United States in February, the Israeli government enjoyed overwhelming support from the Jewish Israeli public.<\/p>\n

Opposition parties lent their support to the army and backed the audacious step. Enmity towards the government in Iran is an issue mainstream Zionist parties agree on.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Then in June, Israel\u2019s role in the confrontation halted abruptly with an announcement from US President Donald Trump, who said Iran and Israel had agreed to stop attacking each other.<\/p>\n

That announcement \u2013 and Netanyahu\u2019s decision to abide by it at the time \u2013 were unpopular in Israel. According to the Israel Democracy Institute<\/a>, 65 to 70 percent of Jewish Israelis believe that stopping the war did not serve Israel\u2019s national security interests.<\/p>\n

As Israelis prepare to vote in national elections on October 27, Iran remains an important election issue for many. Opposition parties present Iran as an example of what they say are Netanyahu\u2019s many failures. They promise to reset security and foreign policy if they\u2019re elected.<\/p>\n

The frontrunner, Gadi Eisenkot, says the conflict is unfinished. While saying that a change in Iran\u2019s government was an unrealistic goal, Eisenkot accuses Netanyahu of doing little to dismantle Iran\u2019s nuclear programme. In September at the inauguration of his new party, Yashar, Eisenkot told<\/a> supporters: \u201cUltimately, it must end in the destruction or dismantling of the Iranian nuclear programme, a goal not yet achieved with 440kg [970lb] of highly enriched uranium already there, which could quickly be turned into several nuclear devices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who is now the head of the opposition in the Knesset, accuses Netanyahu of a strategic failure. He recently told<\/a> the Atlantic Council that toppling the administration in Tehran is a realistic objective that requires a military escalation: \u201cWhat Israel should do or the alliance should do is bomb all the energy facilities, especially on Kharg Island, but other places as well in order to make sure that the Iranian economy is demolished. And the reason is that it\u2019s the only thing that will overturn the regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bombing this civilian infrastructure was actually something Netanyahu had lobbied for himself. An international outcry about such bombings likely constituting war crimes and Trump\u2019s refusal to offer backing put the brakes on the plan.<\/p>\n

Naftali Bennett, another former prime minister, says Israel must ensure its military dominance over the entire region. For Bennett, toppling the government in Iran and crushing it is a must. But he says that is not enough. The right-wing politician calls Qatar an \u201cenemy\u201d and says Turkiye is \u201cthe new Iran\u201d, going as far as saying that military confrontation with the NATO member was inevitable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will build an alliance of moderate forces in the region against the Islamist forces, against Iran, against Qatar, Turkiye and all the radical forces. We will take proactive actions to shape the region,\u201d Bennett recently told supporters.<\/p>\n

Eisenkot and other opposition leaders do not rule out renewed confrontations. They focus on their confidence in the military and security establishment in assessing the dangers and dealing with them appropriately.<\/p>\n

But opposition leaders have voiced concern that Netanyahu might resort to military escalation before the elections to tilt the balance in his favour or even disrupt them altogether \u2013 even though the prime minister said last week that he did not plan to attack Iran before the vote.<\/p>\n

Those fears were elevated after Netanyahu posted a video from the Tel Nof Airbase warning that Israel\u2019s enemies might attack before the elections. Other news reports said Netanyahu has shared intelligence on new threats from Iran with the US president.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu was quickly rebuked by opposition leaders, who accused him of \u201cpolitical fearmongering\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lapid openly questioned Netanyahu\u2019s motives. Lapid also accused him of using the Israeli military and bases as \u201cbackdrops\u201d for election campaign videos.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, most Israeli opposition parties and leaders aren\u2019t opposed to war with Iran, and many are in fact even more hawkish in their approach towards Tehran than Netanyahu. They just don\u2019t want a new military escalation before the elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the rest of the world, the Israeli PM is often blamed for the Iran war. His opponents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4410,234,85,87,46,286552,47,43,238,162198],"class_list":["post-651275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-elections","tag-government","tag-il","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-israel-election-2026","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-us-israel-war-on-iran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}