The Ben Shapiro Show - October 27, 2026


What Americans Need to Know About Israel’s Elections

What the Midterm Map Actually Shows

Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

196.58

Word count

3,142

Sentence count

233


Transcript

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00:00:00.000 Well, the Israeli elections are today.
00:00:02.000 And as we know, apparently all the people, you know, particularly the Democratic Party, want to talk about is Israel.
00:00:08.000 This is a moral Rorschach test.
00:00:10.000 I have a lot of issues without Bibi ultimately conduct the war.
00:00:13.000 I personally do.
00:00:14.000 Israel is an unbelievably important issue because it is the moral crisis of our generation.
00:00:20.000 I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision making process about the future of Israel.
00:00:29.000 If I support Israel, I cannot support this government's actions.
00:00:34.000 They are not aligned with U.S. national security objectives.
00:00:40.000 Okay.
00:00:40.000 So this is the idiot narrative that you've been hearing for a very, very long time from Democrats.
00:00:44.000 Israel's, it's BB, right?
00:00:44.000 Yeah.
00:00:46.000 It's just, and they need a new election.
00:00:47.000 Okay.
00:00:48.000 So we're going to explain everything about this election.
00:00:50.000 This is Israel's sixth election in seven years.
00:00:52.000 That's a little bit deceptive because this is actually the first Israeli government that has lasted a full term, meaning four years since 1988.
00:00:59.000 So typically the way that the government works in Israel, it is a parliamentary system.
00:01:04.000 So just to explain the basis.
00:01:06.000 There are 120 seats in the Israeli parliament, which is called Knesset in Hebrew.
00:01:06.000 The basics.
00:01:10.000 In order for you to have a governing coalition, you must have a majority, 61 seats.
00:01:14.000 So that doesn't mean that, for example, Prime Minister Netanyahu's party, the Likud party, has 61 seats.
00:01:19.000 It means that his party may have 30 seats.
00:01:21.000 And then there are other parties that ally with him to get to 61 seats.
00:01:24.000 Now, in the election, you do not vote for a candidate, you vote for a party.
00:01:30.000 There is a minimum cutoff for a party to actually have seats in the Knesset.
00:01:34.000 You have to have at least four seats, which is 3.25% of the vote.
00:01:37.000 So if you vote for a party that doesn't reach the cutoff, your vote is just discarded.
00:01:40.000 So, a little bit of gamesmanship to Israeli elections.
00:01:45.000 Now, according to Amit Segal, the election turnout has been extraordinarily high, the highest election turnout since 1973.
00:01:51.000 Not a shock.
00:01:52.000 It's the first election Israel has had in four years.
00:01:54.000 And that includes, obviously, the period since October 7th, 2023.
00:01:58.000 So, I'm going to explain to you everything that's going on.
00:02:01.000 And also, I'm going to explain why everybody who's commenting on this but knows nothing about Israeli politics is totally full of crap.
00:02:06.000 So, there are essentially three possibilities in this election Benjamin Netanyahu's party, the Likud party. wins the largest number of seats.
00:02:14.000 And he is asked by the president of Israel, this is the way the process works, Isaac Herzog, to form a coalition.
00:02:20.000 Let's say that he and his coalitional partners, which would be sort of the right wing parties plus the ultra orthodox, reach 61 seats, a majority.
00:02:27.000 Then they form a new government.
00:02:29.000 Possibility number two.
00:02:31.000 His chief opposition is a former leader of the IDF named Gadi Eisenkut.
00:02:35.000 Gadi Eisenkut leads a new party called the Yashar party.
00:02:39.000 Gadi Eisenkut is not a left winger.
00:02:41.000 Gadi Eisenkut would be by any normal description center right.
00:02:45.000 It's possible that he gets to 61 seats with his coalition partners and without the Arab parties, because the Arab parties don't like to join the coalition and the Israeli parties don't typically like to sit with parties that actually don't believe that the state of Israel should exist, which is one of the problems in Israeli politics.
00:03:00.000 You basically have the mainstream of Israeli politics, which is kind of a general center right population.
00:03:07.000 And then you have two groups in Israeli politics that sort of sit outside of that the Arabs who don't serve in the military and many of whom don't believe in the existence of the state of Israel.
00:03:16.000 And then you have the Haredi parties, which also have problems with the existence of the secular state of Israel and also don't serve in the military.
00:03:22.000 So those two are kind of the outlier parties.
00:03:25.000 The most likely scenario is that neither of these groups reaches a majority coalition.
00:03:30.000 Let's say that none of this has, none of, no majority is formed, right?
00:03:34.000 Lukud can't form a coalition with 61.
00:03:36.000 Eisenkut with Yashar cannot form a coalition with 61.
00:03:38.000 So now there are a couple of possibilities as to what comes next.
00:03:41.000 One would be a minority government led by Gadi Eisenkut, held up by the air parties from the outside.
00:03:46.000 So the way that a government falls in Israel, the way a new election is called, Is there's what's called a vote of no confidence.
00:03:51.000 If a majority of the parliament votes for a new election, there's a new election.
00:03:55.000 So, what does that mean?
00:03:56.000 It means that let's say you have 51 seats.
00:04:00.000 And let's say that the Arab parties have 10 seats.
00:04:04.000 They're not actually a part of the government, but they don't vote to topple the government.
00:04:07.000 You could have a minority government.
00:04:09.000 That's what we're talking about here.
00:04:10.000 Held up by the Arab parties from the outside who don't vote for a new election, they just sit outside the government.
00:04:16.000 That has happened before in Israel.
00:04:19.000 In Israel, that happened when there was a government that was led by Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett.
00:04:24.000 And the Arab parties were actually part of the coalition.
00:04:26.000 Some of the parties were not part of the coalition.
00:04:28.000 Then the government fell.
00:04:29.000 So that's possibility number one, if no majority is actually found.
00:04:33.000 Possibility number two, which is one that a lot of people are hoping for, is a unity government that involves both Prime Minister Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkut, his chief opposition.
00:04:41.000 The way that that would work is they agree on a rotating prime ministership where Netanyahu takes the first couple of years of the term.
00:04:47.000 Gadi Eisenkut takes the second couple of years of the term.
00:04:51.000 Now, there would be a tacit deal.
00:04:52.000 The tacit deal there would probably be that Netanyahu, who at that point would be nearly eight years old, would kick over into the ceremonial president's seat.
00:05:00.000 So the president.
00:05:01.000 Is currently Isaac Herzog.
00:05:03.000 He's termed out after a couple more years.
00:05:05.000 That's kind of a ceremonial seat.
00:05:06.000 Basically, you're a spokesperson on behalf of the state of Israel, and then you have the ability to approve a government that is coming in.
00:05:15.000 People appeal to you, and you tell people who gets to first try to form a government, essentially.
00:05:20.000 So Netanyahu could kick there after a couple of years, and you have a unity government that would actually be enormous.
00:05:25.000 If a unity government was formed, it would probably be everybody from Batsala Smotrich's party, which is a right wing party, to the right of Bibi's Likud party.
00:05:33.000 Maybe all the way out to Yair Golan on the left.
00:05:35.000 Maybe, maybe not.
00:05:36.000 But that is it.
00:05:37.000 That is a majority of like 80 some seats, not including the Kharedim or including the Arabs.
00:05:43.000 So that would be an enormous government.
00:05:44.000 A lot of people are hoping for that.
00:05:46.000 According to the current Kalshi markets, again, they're our friends and sponsors, the odds of a Gadi Eisenkot prime ministership have been markedly declining.
00:05:55.000 Right now, top odds remain Gadi Eisenkot.
00:05:58.000 48% of the money said it's Gadi Eisenkot, 35% says no one.
00:06:03.000 16% says Netanyahu.
00:06:06.000 Now, again, I think no one is the likely answer here.
00:06:08.000 If I had to ballpark this thing, again, it's early, I would say the highest likelihood here is interim prime ministership and another election.
00:06:15.000 Let's say that nobody is able to form anything.
00:06:17.000 There's not a minority government supported by the Arabs, there's not a majority government, there's not a unity government, there's nothing.
00:06:24.000 All that happens is that Netanyahu continues as the caretaker prime minister until there's a new election.
00:06:30.000 And this is why you had so many elections in a short period of time.
00:06:32.000 Remember, I told you that there were essentially six elections in seven years.
00:06:37.000 But there was only one in the last four, which means there were five in the prior six.
00:06:42.000 There were lots and lots of elections over and over and over because nobody could form a majority, and Netanyahu just remained as the caretaker prime minister for pretty much that entire period.
00:06:51.000 So, again, turnout is extremely high.
00:06:54.000 Obviously, big rallies.
00:06:56.000 There have been big rallies against Netanyahu throughout this entire process.
00:06:59.000 Tel Aviv is a heavily pro Eisenkut area, Jerusalem would be a heavily pro Netanyahu area.
00:07:04.000 You can see the size of this protest in favor of Gadi Eisenkut.
00:07:08.000 The polls are pretty variable right now.
00:07:11.000 If you take a look at the Channel 12 polls, so Channel 12 in Israel would be like CNN of Israel, essentially.
00:07:18.000 And the Channel 12 polls show Yashar, which is Eisenkopf's party, at 23, Likud at 21, Biachad, which is a sort of joint party between Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid at 15, the Democrats, which are kind of the only left wing party led by Yir Golan, at 10.
00:07:37.000 And then you get the Arabs at 9, Yisrael Beitenu.
00:07:40.000 Which is a sort of hawkish Russian Jewish party at eight, a couple of religious parties that each have eight.
00:07:48.000 And Otzma Yudit would be Ben Kavir, religious Zionism would be the Zahud party, that would be Smotrich and Moshe Feglin.
00:07:55.000 Okay, so more importantly, for people who don't care about any of that, here's what the coalitions would look like in that Channel 12 news poll.
00:08:00.000 This is the last poll taken before the election.
00:08:02.000 As you can see, what you would end up with if this is what materialized is essentially the possibility of a minority government.
00:08:11.000 With the Arabs sitting outside or a unity government.
00:08:16.000 That is the possibility here because the pro Netanyahu bloc would be at 50.
00:08:21.000 The anti Netanyahu bloc would be at 56.
00:08:23.000 Neither one would have a majority.
00:08:25.000 And essentially, the anti Netanyahu bloc would have to count on the Arabs to hold them up from the outside.
00:08:30.000 So that is poll sort of number one.
00:08:32.000 Then you have the Channel 14 poll.
00:08:34.000 So the Channel 14 poll shows something very different.
00:08:38.000 Again, remember, according to that Channel 12 poll, Likud would be at 21.
00:08:42.000 According to the Channel 14 poll, Likud would be at 30.
00:08:46.000 So, according to this poll, Likud would actually be able to form a 62 seat block.
00:08:53.000 So, you think that polls in America are skittish?
00:08:56.000 Try polling the public when you have no great model of how turnout's going to go.
00:09:00.000 When, if you drop below four seats, you don't even get to be in the Knesset in the first place.
00:09:06.000 And again, when people are sort of trying to figure out whether they're going to vote for a fringe party, meaning like not all that many seats, like Zahut, or vote for Likud.
00:09:15.000 So, basically, nobody knows exactly what's going to happen.
00:09:17.000 But here is what this election is not about.
00:09:19.000 Here's the important part.
00:09:21.000 Okay, number one, this election is not about American politics.
00:09:23.000 It is not a reflection of President Trump.
00:09:25.000 It is not a reflection, really, even kind of on Netanyahu's policies.
00:09:30.000 In every poll, over 80% of Israelis like the United States and approve of it.
00:09:34.000 President Trump is wildly popular across the board, except maybe among the Arab parties and maybe Ayr Golan's far left party.
00:09:41.000 Here is what this election is also not really about in the end Netanyahu's conduct of the war since October 7th.
00:09:47.000 That has ultimately been successful.
00:09:48.000 Remember, Gadi Eisenhower, his chief opponent, was part of the war cabinet from October 7th to June 2024.
00:09:55.000 On many issues, he's campaigned to Netanyahu's right in Lebanon and also on Gaza.
00:10:01.000 Eisenkut, like Bibi, wants freedom to strike inside Iran.
00:10:04.000 He just doesn't want to call explicitly for regime change.
00:10:06.000 Netanyahu wants regime change openly.
00:10:08.000 But in reality, Eisenkut has said that regime change in Iran would be great.
00:10:11.000 So there are really no big, major differentiations between Eisenkut and Netanyahu when it comes to policy with regard to Lebanon, Gaza, or Iran.
00:10:21.000 So, what is actually going on in Israel?
00:10:23.000 What's the election about?
00:10:25.000 It's the same thing every election has been about since like seven years ago anger at Netanyahu over a wide variety of issues.
00:10:31.000 Netanyahu is a Machiavellian player in Israeli politics.
00:10:35.000 Half the parties in existence in Israel were started by one time allies of Netanyahu who he cut off at the knees in order to maintain his position, which is, you know, to be fair to him, kind of what you have to do in a parliamentary democracy.
00:10:48.000 So, for example, Gadi Eisenhower was head of the IDF and part of the war cabinet while Netanyahu was prime minister.
00:10:53.000 Yair Lapid.
00:10:56.000 And Naftali Bennett's party.
00:10:57.000 Naftali Bennett was a member of Likud.
00:11:01.000 Naftali, Avigdor Lieberman, who's the head of the Israel Beitenu party, Avigdor Lieberman was a former deputy and defense secretary under Netanyahu.
00:11:12.000 So again, half the parties in the Knesset were started by former allies of Netanyahu.
00:11:17.000 There have been allegations of corruption that some people are very bought into.
00:11:23.000 I think the evidence on those is largely specious.
00:11:27.000 And then there is the biggest issue in Israeli politics, which remains whether the Haredim ought to serve.
00:11:31.000 This is sort of the biggest issue in Israeli politics that drives it so much.
00:11:34.000 So, the Haredim represent approximately 10% of the Israeli population, 10 to 15% of the Israeli population, and growing.
00:11:42.000 The Haredim do not serve in the military.
00:11:44.000 They're not drafted.
00:11:45.000 They disproportionately take advantage of welfare benefits in the state of Israel.
00:11:50.000 And the vast majority of the public would like for them to serve and also to get jobs and not be so dependent on welfare.
00:11:57.000 And that has been a holdup because a bunch of people who normally agree with Netanyahu won't join his coalition.
00:12:02.000 So, Bibi has been forced to rely on the Haredim to comprise his coalition.
00:12:06.000 And that means.
00:12:07.000 That there has been no deal on the Haredim serving.
00:12:11.000 So essentially, what you have here is the two sides that basically agree on most policies, right?
00:12:18.000 Eisenkopf and Netanyahu, just if you looked at their platforms, are nearly identical.
00:12:23.000 It's just that no coalition in Israel can form given the personal and political divides between the sides.
00:12:29.000 Now, there's been an attempt by the left wing press in Israel and also internationally to lay all the problems of Israel's current PR situation at the hands of Netanyahu.
00:12:36.000 That's cheap and it's stupid.
00:12:37.000 The reality is that any Long lasting significant war to extirpate Hamas in the Gaza Strip was going to be met by precisely the same allegations of genocide, precisely the same lies about Israeli activity, precisely the same level of ire.
00:12:51.000 Now it's true that Netanyahu's relationship with Joe Biden wasn't all that strong, obviously, and that the left wing press despised Netanyahu.
00:12:58.000 But if you think that if Gadi Eisenkut or Natalie Bennett had been prime minister during that period, things would have been wildly different.
00:13:04.000 That is not true.
00:13:06.000 It just isn't.
00:13:07.000 And that is why there are a lot of American Jews who have sort of convinced themselves that if BB goes, then suddenly all of their problems with their friends will go away wrong.
00:13:14.000 It's not going to happen.
00:13:16.000 If you believe the lie, oh, Israel's fine.
00:13:19.000 They're fine.
00:13:20.000 It's just BB.
00:13:21.000 If you believe that lie, then you're having the wool pulled over your eyes.
00:13:24.000 For a couple of months, if Eisenkopf becomes prime minister, then there will be a sort of truce in terms of PR, a slight truce.
00:13:32.000 And the first time that Gadi Eisenkopf has to take actual action against the Iranian government, all of that will spring right back into place.
00:13:40.000 So, again, it is very easy for Americans to try to think that everything is about us.
00:13:45.000 It really is not.
00:13:45.000 Brazilian elections, believe it or not, not about President Trump, not about us.
00:13:48.000 Israeli elections, not about us.
00:13:50.000 Hungarian elections, not about us.
00:13:54.000 Now, it's possible that the Israeli public could see Netanyahu overall as somebody who has already performed his main function.
00:14:01.000 They did a good job at the war.
00:14:03.000 He strengthened Israeli military dominance, but they're angry at him for October 7th.
00:14:06.000 And now he's basically Batman at the end of the dark night, the hero that Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now.
00:14:11.000 Or it's possible that Netanyahu pulls another rabbit out of the hat.
00:14:14.000 Or that you end up with another interminable round of elections, just like a few years ago.
00:14:19.000 That he ends up caretaker prime minister, or there's a minority government, and that government falls five minutes from now.
00:14:23.000 But here is what this is not about.
00:14:25.000 And this is what the left wing press are going to lie to you about.
00:14:27.000 They will lie.
00:14:28.000 If Netanyahu does not end up, and his coalition does not end up in power, it is a lie that the Israeli public has turned left.
00:14:35.000 That's absurd and it's stupid.
00:14:37.000 Gadi Eisenkot would be the first Sephardi prime minister of the state of Israel ever.
00:14:42.000 He's a Moroccan extraction, Gadi Eisenkot.
00:14:44.000 And for those who don't follow, again, Israeli politics in detail, that means that he is gut check a non left winger.
00:14:52.000 His son was killed in the Gaza war.
00:14:55.000 I mean, the notion that Gadi Eisenkaut is some sort of far left, Yair Golan type is a lie.
00:15:01.000 And the idea that the Israeli public is overall to the left is insane.
00:15:07.000 According to the Jewish Public Policy Institute polling, they did a poll in October 2026.
00:15:12.000 65% of Jewish Israelis call themselves politically right, openly.
00:15:16.000 That's 24% who say they're strongly right, 21% that's right, 99% as moderately right wing, 11% as right leaning centrist.
00:15:25.000 Only 10% identify as exactly in the center, and only 22% say that they're on the left.
00:15:31.000 22% say they're on the left.
00:15:32.000 So don't listen to the pundits on CNN who don't know what they're talking about.
00:15:37.000 They pretend to know, or the New York Times.
00:15:38.000 They literally know nothing.
00:15:39.000 Don't listen to Thomas Friedman.
00:15:41.000 Don't listen to all the op ed writers who once rode in a taxi cab.
00:15:45.000 They don't know anything.
00:15:46.000 Less than nothing, actually, in many cases.
00:15:48.000 What they know is just wrong.
00:15:50.000 What an amazing video you just watched.
00:15:52.000 Wasn't that amazing?
00:15:53.000 Well, you know, if you think so, head on over to dailywire.comslash subscribe to watch the full show ad free or check out this crazy story here.