As Israel’s expansionist policies threaten the stability of the wider region, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu further stokes the fire. Netanyahu is currently running his election campaign on anti-Türkiye rhetoric after being forced under U.S. pressure to stop attacks on Iran and Lebanon.
The prime minister, whose name has been linked to corruption allegations and whose party has fallen in public opinion polls, has long sought to avoid prison. He became the first sitting Israeli prime minister to stand trial for corruption. The architect of the genocide in the Gaza Strip, who is responsible for the deaths of more than 73,000 Palestinians (most of them women and children), has been criticized even in Israel for "setting the region on fire to protect his seat."
Netanyahu's Likud party is currently the largest party in Israel's 120-seat parliament with 32 seats. But opinion polls for elections scheduled for Oct. 27 show Likud falling from 32 seats to 23 and becoming the second-largest party. Polls also show Likud and Netanyahu's far-right and ultra-Orthodox coalition partners falling far below the 61 seats needed to form a government. A poll published by Israel's Channel 13 on Aug. 19 showed Netanyahu and his coalition partners winning a total of only 51 seats.
