Israel Heads to Elections

Israelis will head to the polls this fall to choose their next prime minister and governing coalition. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, faces steep opposition: his bloc trails in the polls, and former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid have again joined forces against him. Yet divisions within the opposition could prevent an alternative coalition from forming.

How is the race likely to unfold, and what will those potential outcomes mean for Israel’s foreign policy and of the war that began on October 7, 2023? And what will they mean for domestic tensions, such as relations between the country’s judiciary and its legislature, which have been hotly contested during the term of the current Knesset?

To discuss these issues, the Middle East Institute will host Mr. Yohanan Plesner, President of the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) and a former member of Knesset for the Kadima party, and Dr. Tamar Hermann, Senior Research Fellow at IDI and Academic Director of the Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research. MEI Senior Fellow Dr. Natan Sachs will moderate.

Panelists

Mr. Yohanan Plesner is President of the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), a post he has held since 2014. He previously served as Executive Director of the then-governing Kadima Party and, between 2007 and 2013, as a member of Knesset. He was a member of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, and the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee. In 2012, he chaired the special governmental Committee for Equality in the Burden of Service, which produced a blueprint for incorporating the ultra-Orthodox community into military and national service. Plesner is a graduate of the Hebrew University and of the Kennedy School of Government.

Dr. Tamar Hermann is a Senior Research Fellow at IDI and Academic Director of the Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research. An expert in public opinion and foreign and security policy design, she leads IDI’s Israeli Democracy Index and Israeli Voice Index and previously produced the long-running Peace Index. She is a Professor of Political Science at the Open University and previously taught at Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Dr. Natan Sachs (Moderator) is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute. His research focuses US foreign policy, Israeli foreign policy and domestic politics, and Middle East affairs. From 2012 to 2025, he served as a Fellow, Senior Fellow, and for eight years, Director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy. Sachs has testified before committees of the US Congress and other parliaments. He holds a B.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University.