Israel’s election on October 27 should be about more than which parties can assemble the next coalition. It should answer a question that has hung over the country for far too long: can Israel still hold its most powerful leader accountable? This will be the first national election since the October 7, 2023 attack, and that alone gives it a significance no campaign slogan can adequately capture. My position is straightforward: Benjamin Netanyahu has to go. Through the ballot box, through a legitimate parliamentary process, and with an orderly transfer of power. His departure would not solve every Israeli problem. It would, however, establish that remaining in office is not an entitlement and that political survival cannot indefinitely substitute for responsibility.
October 7 must remain at the center of that judgment. Hamas bears responsibility for the atrocities it committed. Recognizing that responsibility does not absolve Israel’s leadership of its duty to explain how the country’s defenses failed so catastrophically. Military and intelligence failures deserve rigorous investigation, but the political leadership cannot stand above the same scrutiny. Netanyahu’s opponents have made accountability for that disaster a central election issue, and rightly so. A prime minister cannot claim authority over national security when things go well and retreat behind the professional establishment when they go terribly wrong. Responsibility belongs to the office. Otherwise, what exactly are voters being asked to entrust to it?
The democratic stakes extend beyond one devastating failure. Israel needs a political culture in which institutions can investigate, criticize and constrain a government without being treated as enemies of the nation. Courts must be able to rule against ministers. Journalists must be able to ask uncomfortable questions. Civil servants must be able to give advice that a prime minister would rather not hear. Citizens must be able to demonstrate without having their patriotism put on trial. There is ample room to debate judicial powers, appointments and the balance between elected officials and legal institutions. But any reform should make government more accountable, and the public should judge it by that standard. A parliamentary majority provides the authority to govern; it does not confer ownership of the state.
Netanyahu’s departure matters because Israeli politics needs room to breathe again. Too much of the national conversation revolves around defending him, defeating him, explaining him or anticipating his next maneuver. Housing, education, infrastructure, public safety and the cost of ordinary life struggle for attention beneath that permanent political drama. Even people who admire his experience should ask whether this concentration on one individual still serves the country. Israel has capable people across its political spectrum. The suggestion that only one man can manage its dangers is a poor assessment of the society he claims to lead.
For Israeli society, the election should also become a reckoning with the unequal distribution of obligation. A durable country cannot depend on the same families repeatedly carrying military service, reserve duty, disrupted employment and the financial consequences of national emergencies. Nor can a government reasonably demand sacrifice while treating exemptions and public spending primarily as bargaining chips in coalition negotiations. A fairer settlement will require patience, practical arrangements and respect for different communities. It will also require a willingness to make decisions that powerful political partners dislike. Shared citizenship has to mean something tangible when the bill arrives, as it always does.
That argument should never become an excuse to turn whole communities into targets. Haredi Israelis are not a single political personality. Religious Israelis do not all share one program, and secular Israelis do not possess a monopoly on civic virtue. Arab citizens must enjoy equal protection, meaningful political participation and public services worthy of their citizenship. People can disagree sharply over security, religion and national identity while still accepting that their neighbors belong to the same democratic state. Israel needs leadership capable of working with those disagreements. Keeping the country permanently angry may be an effective campaign technique, but it is an exhausting way to live.
Security is where the case for change must be especially serious. Israel faces enemies whose intentions cannot be wished away, and any successor government will have to protect the country with resolve. Yet resolve also requires judgment: clear objectives, honest assessments of costs, diplomatic work and a credible explanation of what military action is intended to achieve. Israelis deserve leaders who can distinguish a battlefield accomplishment from a lasting improvement in national security. They deserve to know what the next stage is meant to accomplish, what its limits are and how their sacrifices contribute to a safer future. Endless emergency is not a satisfactory governing program.
The opposition therefore has obligations of its own. “Anyone but Netanyahu” may express understandable frustration, but it cannot be the entire prospectus for the next government. Parties seeking to replace him should explain how they will cooperate, what institutional protections they will defend and how they intend to govern a deeply divided society. Israel’s proportional electoral system makes coalition building essential; voters elect a 120-member Knesset rather than directly choosing a prime minister. Winning seats must be followed by the harder work of forming a government capable of functioning. Another round of personal rivalries and tactical paralysis would squander the opportunity for change.
A new government should begin with independent scrutiny of October 7, a firm commitment to institutional integrity and a practical program for the households carrying the country through its crises. It should set a different tone toward political opponents, too. Netanyahu’s voters are citizens whose concerns deserve representation, not people to be humiliated after an electoral defeat. An orderly transition should demonstrate that changing the government is a normal democratic act, even after an extraordinarily bitter campaign. That is part of the repair.
Netanyahu has to go because accountability must eventually have consequences. His departure would give Israel an opportunity to recover a healthier relationship between leadership and public service, between national security and political judgment, and between the communities asked to share the country’s burdens. The opportunity could still be wasted; a successor would have to earn public trust through decisions and conduct. But Israel should take it. A country whose citizens have shown so much courage deserves a government willing to answer to them, and a political future with room for someone else.