Delegates from eight of the nine parties contesting the Oct. 27 election took part in a Sunday English-language debate, and each came down against the creation of a Palestinian state — a position that cut across nearly the entire field of participants.
Nine parties drawn from across Israel's political landscape sent representatives to a debate hosted jointly by JNS and Yad L'Olim. Dov Lipman — a former Knesset member who also serves as founder and CEO of Yad L'Olim — and Ruthie Blum, a JNS columnist and television host, shared the moderating duties.
Among those who took part were Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli of Likud, Alex Rif representing Yashar, MK Moshe Tur-Paz of the Together (B'Yachad) party, MK Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionist Party, MK Oded Forer of Yisrael Beiteinu, MK Gilad Kariv of The Democrats, Yishai Fleisher affiliated with Otzma Yehudit, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum of Amcha Yisrael, and former MK Einat Wilf, who stands with the Reservists-Economic Party.
When asked directly whether they backed the creation of a Palestinian state, Hassan-Nahoum gave the most unequivocal response among those questioned, stating that her answer was an absolute no. Forer and Fleisher — the latter pledging his party would contest it with every available means — both withheld consent, while Rothman of the Religious Zionist Party, Tur-Paz of Together, Chikli of Likud, and Rif each indicated their rejection. Chikli specified that Likud's position extended to every conceivable form such a state might take.
When the vote on Palestinian statehood was called, MK Gilad Kariv of the Democrats party found himself without a connection — a temporary technical outage having severed his link at the exact moment the question was put, leaving no recorded position on his behalf. On the question of a two-state arrangement, Kariv has put forward the view that Israel ought eventually to accept a demilitarised Palestinian state, provided such a step forms part of a wider regional framework.
An exchange between Wilf and Lipman stood out as one of the few moments where the two found common ground. Wilf attributed the absence of a Palestinian state to Arab reluctance to accept a Jewish state alongside them, a characterisation Lipman viewed as effectively closing the door on that outcome. The broader conversation remained divided across a range of contested questions: the future governance of Gaza, whether haredi men should be conscripted into the IDF, who bears responsibility for the intelligence and security failures that left Israel exposed to the Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023, and which political figures should hold power once Israelis returned to the ballot box.
Where the participants found common ground was on preventing Hamas from reconstituting its armed forces, yet their positions diverged on the broader question of what future governance arrangement Gaza ought to have.
Hassan-Nahoum laid out a proposal championed by the Amcha Yisrael party leader, a retired IDF brigadier general. A plan attributed to Gen. Ofer Winter outlined a sequence of steps: first, drawing a clear boundary between Gaza's civilian population and Hamas fighters; second, designating a zone from which weapons would be excluded; third, positioning Israel as the sole distributor of humanitarian aid to that area; and fourth, proceeding with military action against the armed groups that remained. A second phase, she explained, would open a pathway for Gazans who wished to depart to do so voluntarily, and she expressed confidence that the plan already in place would be carried through to deliver victory in Gaza.
Chikli attributed the origins of the October 7 attack to a chain of policy choices dating from the Oslo Accords, running through the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and the 2011 prisoner exchange in which Gilad Shalit was freed. He separately put forward the view that the goal was to retain a hold over Gaza while keeping Hamas from rebuilding its strength, adding that operations targeting Hamas commanders should be sustained.
Rif put forward the position that accepting a temporary halt while Hamas rebuilt its capabilities was not an option, and called for the group's military and administrative infrastructure to be dismantled, alongside the preservation of freedom of military action within Gaza. Forer put forward the position that Israel should shed its obligations over Gaza's electricity, water, and humanitarian aid supplies, while Fleisher argued the territory should come under Israeli administration with an eye toward permanent resettlement.
Tur-Paz put forward the position that disarming Hamas should take precedence above all other objectives, and expressed the view that Egypt and the United Arab Emirates would be more appropriate participants in postwar governance of Gaza than Qatar and Turkey. Rothman argued that assembling a governing coalition with the actual capacity to implement hardline policies toward Hamas posed a greater obstacle than simply adopting those policies in the first place.
Kariv contended that the coalition in power at the time of the October 7 attacks had lost the standing to guide the country's security path forward. The two candidates also staked out opposing positions on whether haredi men should be required to serve in the military.
Forer put forward a plan under which all Israeli citizens would be required to register for service at 18, with the military drawing from that pool as needed and the remainder directed toward national service roles in bodies such as the police, fire service, and hospitals. He added that anyone who did not serve would forfeit entitlement to state benefits.
Tur-Paz stated that a government headed by Naftali Bennett would withdraw state funding from those who do not serve and channel those resources toward Israelis who do. Hassan-Nahoum put forward a position combining material incentives with penalties, contending that those who complete national service should receive a greater share of state benefits, and she expressed the view that full civic rights and entitlements should be tied to a willingness to serve.
Rothman and Fleisher took the position that drawing haredi men into military service would be better accomplished by fostering organic shifts in community attitudes and offering material incentives, rather than by imposing any form of compulsion. Kariv took the position that incremental measures on haredi military service had become untenable in the wake of the October 7 attacks, while Chikli pointed to an upward trend in enlistment numbers and directed blame at earlier administrations for putting forward weaker legislative frameworks.
Wilf put forward a proposal for a universal service obligation covering all citizens — men and women, Jewish and Arab alike — under which those not taken on by the IDF would be directed toward alternative forms of national service.
Delegates from each of the four parties making up the governing coalition — Likud, the Religious Zionist Party, Otzma Yehudit, and Amcha Yisrael — put forward Netanyahu's name when asked to nominate a candidate for prime minister. Chikli named Netanyahu, while Fleisher indicated that Otzma Yehudit would back the Likud leader with the aim of keeping him in a stronger position aligned with their policy direction. Hassan-Nahoum likewise expressed support for Netanyahu as the head of the right-wing bloc, and Rothman stated that his party intended to stand behind him while pressing the government on settlement expansion, judicial reform, and related matters.
Among opposition members, no consensus formed on which candidate to put forward for the premiership. Rif indicated that Yashar would put forward Gadi Eisenkot — who previously served as IDF Chief of Staff — as its candidate, while Tur-Paz threw its support behind Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister who leads Together. Forer named Yisrael Beiteinu's Avigdor Liberman as his preferred candidate for the top post, while noting that the choice of prime minister should ultimately rest with the four Zionist opposition parties once voting concludes.
Kariv indicated that his party would back whichever opposition figure stood the strongest chance of unseating Netanyahu, pointing to Gadi Eisenkot as the likeliest option at that stage. Wilf stopped short of naming anyone, explaining that the Reservists-Economic Party's backing would go to the candidate able to draw the broadest support among Zionist Knesset members.
Five of the participants — Rif, Wilf, Kariv, Forer, and Tur-Paz — expressed support for the creation of a state commission tasked with examining what went wrong in the lead-up to and during the Oct. 7 attack. Four of the figures involved — Chikli, Rothman, Fleisher, and Hassan-Nahoum — took the position that appointing such a commission should not rest with the courts, arguing instead for a selection process capable of drawing wide backing from across the political spectrum.
Wilf argued that a state commission represented the one existing body with enough legal authority to conduct an investigation, while separately expressing the view that the debate over whether to pursue such a mechanism should not be necessary. Rothman took the opposing view, arguing that courts in Israel already play a part in security matters and therefore should not have a hand in selecting the commission's membership. He argued that the justice system should not bear responsibility for examining its own conduct, and put forward as an alternative a body drawing on lawmakers from across the political divide — with backing from at least 80 Knesset members spanning both coalition and opposition benches — as the basis for a new commission.
