Dr Brendan Ciarán Browne

THOSE WHO HAVE spent the best part of three years telling us that Netanyahu and his despotic government of right wing fanatics do not represent Israel and its ‘democratic’ values would have been desperate to see him unceremoniously ousted from political office.

But as of 29 October 2026, the man who has overseen industrial scale levels of Palestinian civilian slaughter, enforced starvation of the entire civilian population, and a complete levelling of the Gaza Strip, has managed to hang on, securing the largest vote share for his Likud party (translating into 27 seats, just over one million ballots, or approximately 20% of the overall vote), but ultimately falling short of the Knesset majority (61 seats) required to govern outright.

More alarmingly for those who remain determined on rehabilitating Israel’s image on the global stage, the Netanyahu bloc which includes firebrand ministers such as Itamar Ben-Gvir from the far-right Otzma Yehudit & Bezalel Smotrich from the Religious Zionism party – ministers who have made it their life’s mission to exact maximum pain and suffering on the Palestinian civilian population – received 2.5 million of the 5.7 million eligible votes, returning 54 seats.

That means that almost half of the voting population inside Israel have voted for more of the same. Effectively saying: ‘carry on lads, you’re doing great’.

No change, then?

For almost 20 years Netanyahu has been at the forefront of Israeli politics whilst simultaneously managing to survive various high profile scandals, avoiding prison time for allegations of bribery, fraud and corruption, not to mention dodging a largely symbolic arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court – symbolic in that leaders in the West have largely ignored the determination of the court and in so doing, greatly undermined the efficacy of international law.

Surely anyone is better than this? Right? Hold that thought.

Waiting in the wings to take over is Israeli General Gadi Eisenkot, someone who the liberal media in the West are determined to present as a centrist, ‘progressive’ and someone who can lead Israel in a new direction. This is despite the fact that he has openly declared he is fervently against Palestinian statehood, fully committed to the destruction of Hamas, and will not countenance working alongside Arab parties in coalition in the Knesset due to a ‘lack of shared values’. One has to wonder what these shared values may be if they don’t include equality, dignity and human rights for all.

Amongst other notable achievements is his role in creating the ‘Dahiya Doctrine’, a policy born during the 2006 Lebanon war which promoted the use of extraordinary and excessive amounts of military force against civilians and civilian infrastructure.

Thus, anyone watching the Israeli elections from afar and hoping for dramatic change would do well to adopt a longer gaze.

Political commentators routinely throw around terms like ‘hawk’ and ‘dove’ in reference to Israeli leaders of the past and present, in an effort to provide the illusion of there being the slightest possibility of ‘peace’, even if it is a ‘peace’ that remains fundamentally flawed, racist and based on Palestinian concession.

Where are the moderates?

Consider for example the tenure of Yitzhak Rabin, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and the person responsible for signing the Oslo Accords. Under his watch Palestine continued to be subjected to the scourge of relentless settlement expansion and associated housing demolition.

‘Peace’ for Rabin was far removed from ending the occupation, being instead about the management and containment of the Palestinian population and their legitimate demands for self-determination, whilst simultaneously subscribing to a ‘peace’ plan that involved outsourcing occupation responsibility to a subservient Palestinian Authority and willing accomplices in the West.

Not that surprising really when you consider that it was Rabin who was chief architect of the ‘break their bones policy’ during the First Intifada, the largely non-violent Palestinian uprising of the 1980s.

Those who hold up the ‘peaceful’ credentials of Shimon Peres, a man who enjoys adulation amongst many in the west, would do well to google the Qana massacre in southern Lebanon, an abhorrent act of barbarity that he once famously quipped he was at ‘peace’ with (no pun intended).

Related Reads

The FAI’s communications misstep: Where was Uefa while the Irish squad took the heat?

'They called us Irish bastards, but then Parrott scored': One fan's experience at the Israel game

Taoiseach says Israeli FA's attack on Hallgrímsson is 'unacceptable' and should be withdrawn

Ehud Olmert who, whilst admittedly being relatively outspoken against the ongoing Genocide in Gaza (whilst of course avoiding the ‘G’ word) was responsible for overseeing the targeted assassination of Palestinian leaders, the war in Lebanon and the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak was once threatened with arrest whilst visiting the UK in 2009 over allegations of war crimes committed in Gaza under his leadership. Not to mention Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid, both of whom have made it very clear that they have little to no interest in making ‘peace’ with Palestinians, or even countenancing the notion of a Palestinian state.

If it is not clear by now, then it really ought to be.

The policies that undergird Israel’s relentless ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians (culminating in this moment of Genocidal zenith in Gaza) have, broadly speaking, remained the same.

For Palestinians, the passing of time can be mapped on to a series of failed ‘peace’ processes, from Madrid, to Oslo, to Wye River to Camp David. The consistent theme has been the creeping erasure of Palestine and a doubling down of the West’s unbridled support for Israel’s expansive colonial aims.

Therefore, what is required is not a ‘new’ political leader cut from the same cloth, but a fundamental reckoning with the racist ideology that undergirds Zionism and its relentless settler colonial mission in historic Palestine.

Dr Brendan Ciarán Browne is Associate Professor & Fellow of Trinity College Dublin.