In the past, many Palestinians and Arabs followed Israeli elections closely. They did so not because they entertained illusions that a Zionist leader would deliver peace and justice, dismantle the occupation or remove illegal settlements. Rather, they feared that some Israeli leaders were worse than others. They hoped to avert the worst-case scenario.

Over time, however, that distinction gave way to the belief that all Israeli leaders were essentially the same. This is not pessimism. It is experience.

Consider, for example, the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements during the Oslo peace process under Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Between 1992 and 1995, the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, increased from about 111,000 to 140,000 — a rise of more than 25 percent — according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, drawing on Israeli statistical records.

The same pattern continued under the Labor government of Ehud Barak. Within his first six months, Barak’s government issued tenders for 3,196 settlement housing units, exceeding the annual average under his right-wing predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu.

When Naftali Bennett formed a coalition government in June 2021 that included the Arab party Ra’am, settlement expansion continued unabated. According to Peace Now, the Bennett-Yair Lapid government advanced plans for 7,292 settlement housing units during its first year, a 26-percent increase on the annual average recorded under previous Netanyahu governments.

In the first seven months of this year, settler attacks increased by 63 percent compared with the same period last year

Dr. Ramzy Baroud

The settlements are themselves a driving force behind the occupation. They require land and therefore land confiscation; protection and therefore an expanded military presence; water, roads and infrastructure and therefore the appropriation of Palestinian resources. Together, these elements deepen dispossession and generate further Israeli violence.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the West Bank contained 645 Israeli settlement sites, outposts and other occupation installations by the end of 2025, including 350 settlement outposts.

The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission reported that Israeli authorities targeted almost 30,000 dunums of Palestinian land through declarations of so-called state land between October 2023 and August 2026 — one of the largest waves of such land appropriation since Oslo.

By last month, the commission had also documented the advancement or consideration of plans for more than 18,000 additional settlement housing units across the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2026 alone.

Alongside this expansion is the violence unfolding across the West Bank. The commission has reported that, in the first seven months of this year, settler attacks increased by 63 percent compared with the same period last year.

Typically, this violence — carried out by the Israeli occupation army and armed illegal settlers — is contextualized within the ongoing genocide in Gaza. But violence in the West Bank also serves other purposes beyond collective punishment: the confiscation of Palestinian orchards, the annexation of land, the expansion of settlements and the crushing of Palestinian resistance, including nonviolent opposition to this colonial enterprise.

Any Israeli candidate in Tuesday’s elections who supports settlement expansion does so with full knowledge of its consequences: further dispossession, military occupation, annexation and violence.

Eisenkot, for example, openly supports settlement expansion despite his reputation as a more ‘moderate’ alternative

Dr. Ramzy Baroud

The difference between Prime Minister Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and politicians presented as less extreme is often one of language, strategy and timing.

Former Israeli military chief and Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot, for example, openly supports the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, despite his reputation as a more “moderate” alternative to Netanyahu.

What about Gaza? Who among Israel’s leading political figures is promising to end the genocide, lift the siege, ensure unrestricted humanitarian aid, restrain the army or investigate violations of international law? None.

The Israeli media has spent the past three years reporting on major disagreements between the government, the military establishment, intelligence agencies and the political opposition over what should happen in Gaza.

Yet Eisenkot has pledged to end Hamas’ rule in the Strip within 18 months of taking office, whether through the Trump framework or through continued war.

For his part, opposition leader and former PM Lapid has proposed placing Gaza under Egyptian administration for 15 years, effectively shifting responsibility for Israel’s actions onto Arab states. Bennett, meanwhile, supports continued Israeli military control until Palestinian groups are disarmed.

The disagreement, therefore, is often over how Israel should achieve its objectives, rather than whether those objectives should change.

Other major disagreements primarily concern Israeli society, such as the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews, judicial reform and accountability for the failures of Oct. 7. But these disputes should not be confused with the questions that matter most to Palestinians.

If Netanyahu succeeds in forming another right-wing coalition, the policies of occupation, settlement expansion and military confrontation will continue, potentially with renewed momentum. If Israel produces a broader coalition, its members may reach compromises over judicial reform, conscription and other domestic disputes. But the occupation is unlikely to become the central point of disagreement.

More troubling still, even a government leaning toward the center-left might succeed in presenting Israel to the international community as a country ready to move beyond the image it acquired during three years of genocide, without fundamentally changing its conduct on the ground.

The international community must therefore remain vigilant. It cannot allow a future Israeli government to present itself as a peacemaker or to sell the illusion of a newly reformed Israel, while continuing to invest in settlements, occupation, war and genocide.

  • Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. His latest book, “Before the Flood,” was published by Seven Stories Press. His website is ramzybaroud.net. X: @RamzyBaroud