Israel’s upcoming October election serves as a pivotal moment for both the political future of President Benjamin Netanyahu and the ideological trajectory of his Likud party. Once established as a mainstream pillar of Zionist politics, Likud is now widely viewed by analysts as having shifted firmly into the far-right camp. This transformation marks a significant departure from the party’s historical roots, raising questions about its long-term influence on Israeli society.
The landscape of Israeli politics has been dominated by Likud-led coalitions since the 1990s, interrupted only by brief intervals of centrist or left-wing governance. This dominance followed a long period where the Israeli left held sway from the nation’s founding in 1948 until 1977, when the rise of Menachem Begin—a former leader of the Irgun underground group—began to erode that grip on power. Under the leadership of Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, the party has increasingly shed its traditional secular, liberal-leaning credentials.
A core element of this shift is the party’s deepening alliance with fringe political figures, specifically Itamar Ben-Gvir of the Jewish Power party and Bezalel Smotrich of Religious Zionism. Political scientist Dahlia Scheindlin, author of *The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel: Promise Unfulfilled*, asserts that there is no longer a meaningful distinction between the policies and ideologies of Likud and these far-right factions. Both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are vocal proponents of annexing occupied Palestinian territories, and Ben-Gvir has faced intense criticism for inflammatory rhetoric, including suggestions that the military should kill dozens of Palestinians in Gaza daily.
The internal structure of Likud has also undergone a profound change. Analysts observe that the party is no longer defined by its historical platform but by its absolute focus on Netanyahu’s personal leadership. Netanyahu has secured the power to personally appoint one-third of the candidates for parliament, a move that critics argue cements his control over the party’s direction. This centralization has alienated long-time members, leading several to depart in protest. Recent examples include senior lawmaker Yuli Edelstein and deputy Dan Illouz, who resigned over the government’s push to exempt ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews from military service.
Political analyst Goren suggests that this pivot is driven by a combination of ideological alignment and Netanyahu’s personal legal challenges. By embracing the far right, Netanyahu has found a political home for his survival instincts, effectively merging his interests with those of groups previously considered political outcasts. Experts like Steinbock argue that the formal invitation of these messianic far-right elements into the coalition following the 2022 election was the decisive turning point in this transition.
Despite this consolidation, the party faces a challenging electoral path. Recent polling indicates that Netanyahu’s hardline bloc currently commands just over 50 seats, falling short of the 61-seat parliamentary majority required to form a government. Scheindlin notes that Likud is currently trailing the centrist Yashar party, led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot. While the party remains a potent force, its future influence is uncertain; analysts like Rudnitzky of the Moshe Dayan Center warn that by fully adopting a far-right identity, Likud risks losing its broader appeal to the Israeli public, who may not share the radical worldviews of its current coalition partners.
Ultimately, the party’s shift toward populism and personality-driven politics has fundamentally altered its character. Whether Likud can maintain its status as a mainstream representative of the ‘true right’ or if it will continue to drift toward the ideological fringes remains the central question of the October vote. For many observers, the outcome will determine whether Israel’s future trajectory remains stable or moves toward a more polarized and grim reality. The report also notes that but this distinction no longer matters since the Likud has thrown its full support behind the policies of the most fanatic parties,” she says, referring to his coalition partners, netanyahu is often seen as someone who is not ideologically a religious fundamentalist or annexationist. The report also notes that ben-Gvir has also attracted controversy for statements ranging from calling on the Israeli military to kill dozens of Palestinians in Gaza each day to proposing a ditch filled with crocodiles around prisons holding Palestinian detainees. The report also notes that a Zionist underground group attacking British and Palestinian forces before Israel’s 1948 founding, and later led by Ariel Sharon, a former general and another co-founder of the party, has recently become more extremist, likud was co-founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin of the Irgun. The report also notes that first, it has become centred around Netanyahu, whose loyalists are filling the ranks. The report also notes that then, it has also shifted towards populism and far-right,” Nimrod Goren, President of the Mitvim Institute, an Israeli think tank, tells. The report also notes that “It is now a very different party from the more liberal party it used to be in previous decades. The report also notes that earlier this month, Dan Illouz, a Likud deputy, also quit the party on the same grounds, refusing to vote for the military exemption bill, which easily became a law. The report also notes that it would be more accurate to say that it has undergone two significant changes in recent years,” Arik Rudnitzky, a researcher at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies.