The war in Iran has, for now, boosted public support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it has not significantly shifted the balance of power between the country’s two main political blocs, according to Israeli political analysts.
If elections were held today, they told Al-Monitor, Netanyahu would likely still fall short of the support needed to form a majority coalition.
Netanyahu, who has held office for 18 years total, with short periods out of office since 1996, saw his popularity plummeted after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel and was already on shaky ground due to his standing trial on charges of bribery and breach of trust. Analysts believe that the political stalemate could shift in Netanyahu's favor if the Iranian government is toppled by popular uprising in the wake of the war. A March 5 poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute revealed that 82% of Israelis support the war against Iran.
Political stalemate
Tal Schneider, diplomatic and political analyst for the Times of Israel, said that while Netanyahu is widely seen by Israelis as responsible for overseeing the catastrophe of Oct. 7, he is also credited with major military operations, including the killings of Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, and Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah.
“Still, the Israeli public remains more or less similarly divided into the two political camps,” she told Al-Monitor, referring to the right and far-right bloc in the governing coalition and a broad opposition bloc, though it remains unclear which parties would ultimately align with the emerging opposition group.
In short, she said, the balance between the blocs has not shifted — meaning neither side could currently form a majority coalition, which requires at least 61 Knesset seats and would ultimately need complex negotiations to form a government.
Public opinion polls conducted over the past week suggest that the war on Iran has also not significantly changed Israelis' voting preferences despite overwhelming support for the war effort itself.
Israeli media has been rife with speculation on whether Netanyahu will call early elections — rather than waiting until late October, when they are scheduled to take place — in an attempt to capitalize on the military, and maybe political, accomplishments of the war after its conclusion.
However, a March 10 opinion poll conducted by Channel 13 showed that Netanyahu's Likud would remain the largest Knesset faction, with 25 seats if elections were held today, while former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's right-wing party would win 17, five fewer than recorded in a Channel 13 poll conducted two weeks earlier. Still, Netanyahu’s bloc would secure only 51 Knesset seats, 10 short of a majority, per the poll.
Gideon Rahat, a political science professor at the Hebrew University, told Al-Monitor, "At the beginning of the war, Netanyahu might have thought it would help him to rehabilitate his image. But as time goes by, it seems that the regime in Iran won’t be toppled so easily, so Netanyahu might not get the victory photo he was hoping for."
Netanyahu’s hardcore supporters will stick with him no matter what, said Rahat, estimating that if the Tehran government has not been toppled by the end of the war, Netanyahu, popularity-wise, will likely find himself more or less where he stood at the start of the war. Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, he said, both made the mistake of setting a high bar for expectations at the beginning of the conflict, whereas had they declared more modest objectives, it would have been easier for them to declare victory.
Prospect of early elections
Under Israeli law, the next election must be called by late October, though it could be held earlier if the prime minister moves to dissolve the Knesset. Some experts believe Netanyahu may push for an earlier vote to capitalize on perceived gains from the Iran war and avoid holding an election around the Oct. 7 anniversary, which would likely refocus attention on his role in that crisis.
"Netanyahu does not want to hold elections too close to the anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre so that the election campaigns won’t focus on the issue of the inquiry commission so many Israelis are demanding be established," a senior political opposition member told Al-Monitor, speaking on condition of anonymity. Unlike senior defense officials, Netanyahu has refused to take responsibility for the political and security failures that led to the Hamas attack.
"Clearly, Netanyahu will focus his election campaign on what the Iran war achieved," the source added.
"Netanyahu’s strategy has always been about buying time," said Rahat. "He managed to survive politically despite the Oct. 7 failures. This is likely to happen again. We could witness the same situation we had in 2020, 2021, 2022, with several rounds of elections, until Netanyahu succeeds in breaking the ranks of the opposition, establishing a narrow-but-majority coalition."
Ultra-Orthodox conscription
After the Oct. 7 attack, hundreds of thousands of Israeli reservists were mobilized for extended service in Gaza and Lebanon, with some deployed for up to 300 days. A Feb. 28 Ynet report said the military had begun calling up another 160,000 reservists, who are now expected to serve for several weeks at minimum as the regional war expands.
The prolonged mobilization has fueled public anger over exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox community, whose young men studying in rabbinical seminaries are largely spared from conscription. The issue has also drawn criticism from right-wing and far-right voters who serve in the military and resent Netanyahu backing the exemption legislation to keep ultra-Orthodox parties in his coalition.
As current polling suggests, there's no indication that the war will be a decisive issue come the fall, though that could change. "The engine that feeds the anti-Netanyahu voting bloc is internal issues, mostly the exemption of the ultra-Orthodox from military service," said Schneider, adding that the dire economic situation, police brutality, increasing crime and violence, and failures in the education system are also important to Israeli voters.
