May 29 will mark 30 years since Benjamin Netanyahu first became prime minister of Israel. Israelis born around the 1996 elections have grown up, completed their education, served in the military, and started families of their own—all while Netanyahu has remained the dominant figure in Israeli politics.
Netanyahu’s contested and troubled legacy will be discussed by scholars of world politics for years to come—whether the focus is Iran, the Palestinians, the Abraham Accords, or the long arc of Israel’s international standing. But this is also a useful moment to examine a narrower but no less consequential aspect: how Netanyahu fundamentally reshaped Israeli society and the electoral logic driving its politics.
The core of the transformation was this: It is often assumed that to build an electoral majority politicians must capture the median voter—that is, the centrist voter located in the middle of the ideological spectrum. That was largely Netanyahu’s approach in the mid-1990s. Yet, over the years, his political strategy shifted. Instead of aiming to position himself closer to the ideological center, he now seeks to obliterate the center—leaving only two opposing camps with such deep animosity between them that no voter can even conceive of switching to the other side.
