SYDNEY, Nov 4 2026 (IPS) - As in previous elections, the latest Israeli national election offered people no real choice. They had to choose between bad Zionists and good Zionists. Thus, unsurprisingly, there is no clear winner – both major blocs are neck and neck as usual. The only difference this time is the Arab voting power. By uniting and turning out in record numbers, the Arab coalition secured 19 seats (nearly double the 10 it won in 2022), against the Netanyahu-led bloc’s 53 and the Gadi Eisenkot-led bloc’s 48. Neither bloc has a governable majority, so many are looking to the Arab bloc as a kingmaker, either joining formally or supporting one of the blocs on the no-confidence and supply bills. But they are on the horns of a dilemma, caught between a rock and a hard place.

Anis Chowdhury

The Gaza genocide and state-sponsored unprecedented settler violence have made Benjamin Netanyahu and his extreme rightist coalition partners bad Zionists. They have become indefensible to the so-called liberal Zionist friends of apartheid Israel. So, they have pinned their hope on a good Zionist retired General Gadi Eisenkot. To them, General Gadi Eisenkot is a good Zionist, not because he will stop Gaza genocide or ethnic cleansing of the occupied West Bank, but because he will apparently manage it better or make Zionism’s ugly face less visible to the world. So, in the lead-up to Israel’s 27 October election, the liberal Zionists declared this would be “the most consequential” in Israel’s history.

However, there is no good Zionist for the Palestinians or Arabs. The so-called good Zionist Eisenkot served in Netanyahu’s government for eight months during the Gaza genocide. He resigned not because he opposed the Gaza genocide; he differed with Netanyahu only on strategies. So, he is responsible for a long list of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Eisenkot was the Israeli military’s chief of staff when Israeli soldiers massacred nearly 200 unarmed Palestinians in Gaza in 2018. He is credited with being the mastermind of the Israeli’s army’s “Dahiya Doctrine”, which calls for disproportionate force against civilians. Eisenkot opposes Palestinian statehood, wants to perpetuate Israel’s apartheid system, and supports Israel’s illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Eisenkot’s coalition partner, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, entered politics as Netanyahu’s chief of staff. He served in the Sayeret Matkal and Maglan special forces units of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and was accused of involvement in the massacre of more than one hundred Lebanese civilians in Qana in 1996. Bennett has openly called for the extrajudicial killing of Palestinians, while he reportedly told a national security advisor, “If you catch terrorists (i.e., a Palestinian), you simply have to kill them”.

Eisenkot’s other coalition partner, Avigdor Liberman, a former Netanyahu minister, has advocated that Israel’s citizens should sign a loyalty oath or lose their right to vote.

Lieberman justified the killing of at least 189 unarmed Palestinian protesters during the great March of Return in April 2018 by declaring that there are “no innocents in Gaza”.

Another Eisenkot coalition partner, General Yair Golan, considered the most “left-wing”, was previously the army’s deputy chief of staff. He has been one of the most strident advocates of genocidal crimes against Palestinians in Gaza. On 13 October 2023, Golan said in an interview with Ynet: “First of all, close all the electricity switches to Gaza. I think that in this battle, it is forbidden to allow a humanitarian effort. We need to say to them: listen, until the [captives] are released, from our side, you can die from starvation. It’s totally legitimate”. Thus, Golan echoed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s infamous statement that Gaza would receive “no power, no food, no gas” because Israel is “fighting human animals, and will act accordingly.”

Therefore, the Eisenkot-led coalition cannot offer any hope to the Palestinians. If bad Zionist Netanyahu is a rock, Eisenkot-led anti-Netanyahu is a hard place for them.

No good Zionist

There is simply no good Zionist. As the UK Green Party’s recently adopted motion says, Zionism is a form of racism. Pulitzer Prize winner Benjamin Moser, a Jewish child of Holocaust survivors, exposed the ugly truth about Zionism in his rigorously researched book, Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History.

Another child of Holocaust survivors, political scientist Norman Finkelstein has been more critical of the Zionist project, as contained in his several books, the most recent being Gaza’s Gravediggers: An Inquiry Into Corruption in High Places. His research has exposed the darkest side of the Zionist project, the apartheid state of Israel.

The Devil you know and the Devil you don’t know

The newly found Arab power will be most effective by accelerating the downfall of the apartheid state. This can only happen if the known Devil Netanyahu remains in power and the delusion of good Zionism is buried. Netanyahu is not the problem as the so-called liberal Zionists are trying to present; the problem is the Zionist project itself.

The New York Times insists “Israel has always been two things: a Jewish state and a liberal democracy”. One should not be misled by such nice slogans. An apartheid state cannot be a liberal democracy. It is an oxymoron.

Anis Chowdhury, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University (Australia). He held senior UN positions in Bangkok and New York and served as Special Assistant to the Chief Advisor for Finance (with the status and rank of State Minister) in the Professor Yunus-led Interim Government. E-mail: anis.z.chowdhury@gmail.com; a.chowdhury@westernsydney.edu.au

IPS UN Bureau