Israel's Next Election – with Dr. Michael Oren

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Israel will head to the polls on October 27 in what promises to be one of the most consequential elections in its history. It will be the first Israeli government to complete a full term in more than five decades.

Host Aviva Klompas is joined by former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Dr. Michael Oren to examine what this election is really about. While much of the international media will frame the vote as a referendum on Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israelis are weighing far broader questions about security, leadership, national priorities, and the country's future nearly three years after October 7.

Together, they discuss how the war has reshaped Israeli politics, whether the government's wartime record will help or hurt Netanyahu at the ballot box, how Israelis are balancing military achievements with unresolved challenges, and what coalition scenarios are most likely to emerge after the vote. They also explore whether international opinion will influence Israeli voters and what this election could mean for Israel's direction in the years ahead.

Guest Bio:

Michael Oren served in the IDF as a Lone Soldier in the paratroopers. He was Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2013 and later served as a Member of Knesset and Deputy Minister of Diplomacy.

He is the author of several New York Times bestsellers including Six Days of War, Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israel Divide, and Power, Faith, and Fantasy. Ambassador Oren published 2048: The Rejuvenated State in 2023 and is the founder of Israel Advocacy Group.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Here is the head of a country, a minuscule country of 10 million people the size of New Jersey, and everybody knows who its leader is, and has a strong opinion of it. Whether he should be in jail or in the White House.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Today is Wednesday, July 29th. This is Boundless Insights, and I'm Aviva Columbus. Israel has officially set October 27th as the date of its next election. And that means this government will become the first in 53 years to complete a full term. In a country known for coalition collapses, that alone makes this election historically significant. But it'll also be the country's first election since October 7th. Israelis will head to the polls to pass judgment on the government that has led the country through the deadliest day in its history, through Israel's longest war, and with unresolved questions about Gaza, Iran, and Lebanon. The next government will also face challenges beyond the battlefield: the crisis of international legitimacy, restoring public trust, and managing Israel's place in a changing Middle East. Now, outside of Israel, the story is far narrower, and people are watching to see whether this is the election that finally ends Netanyahu's political career. Joining me to discuss all of this is one of our favorites, Dr. Michael Orin. He's a historian, best-selling author, and former Israeli ambassador to the United States. He also previously served as a member of Israel's parliament and as deputy minister for diplomacy. Let's get into it. Dr. Michael Orin, welcome back to Boundless Insights.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So good to be with you as always.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

You really are a fan favorite and a host favorite over here. We love when you're on the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

I love being on the show. So that makes an ideal match.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

We are talking today about Israel's upcoming election. So let me start by asking you this. If we were to ask the average Israeli voter to name the single issue that will determine their vote, what's it going to be? Is it security, economy, Haredi enlistment, the failures of October 7th?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Or the actual issue, which is the same issue that has dominated Israeli politics for 30 years now. One issue and one issue only, and that issue is Benjamin Netanyahu.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Aaron Powell Well, that's what it seems to the outside world, which is when is this guy going?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Aaron Powell That's pretty much what it is. And even the pundits here divide the camps into pro-BB and anti-BB. Or they, you know, there's a euphemism. It's the camp for change versus the status quo. But that's a euphemism for BB, not BB. And why BB? I know we've gone in this program many times about why BB, that he's an extremely, extremely difficult act to follow. But it really goes back to a 2015 election commercial, which you can still see on YouTube. It's about 30 seconds long. And in this commercial, you see this young couple, kind of a nerdy couple. You hear kids in the background screaming. And there's a ring on the doorbell. And they open the doorbell, and there is Benjamin Netanyahu. And the father says, Well, what are you doing here? And Bebe says, Well, you ordered a BB sitter. And the father says, Well, we don't want you. And BB says, Well, okay, I'll go get yeah, Yanni, you're Lapide. Okay, I'll get Sippy, Sippy Livney. And the father and the mother go, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Come on in. Next scene, you see BB sitting on a couch with a bowl of popcorn on his lap. And the parents come in and they say, How is everything? How is everything? And Bebe says, Don't worry, your children are sleeping safely.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

And that is what's known popularly as the BB Sitter. And it's really about the babysitter. And what prime minister is going to ensure that our kids will sleep safely at night? Now you can unpack that in many ways. Who is the prime minister who's going to guard our borders? Who's the prime minister who's going to make sure that the IDF has the requisite materials it needs to defend us? Who's going to maintain a certain relationship with the United States? Who's going to stand up to our enemies in the world?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

All of the above. Who is going to do all that and manage the economy and be uh fulfill without a doubt the hardest job on planet Earth in which there are no vacations, no weekends, no time off. You know, the American president has to play golf for two weeks every year and get photographed doing that because Americans get very nervous if their president's not playing golf. If the Prime Minister of Israel were to take off 48 hours for vacation, Israelis could take it to the streets.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

The irony of this, of course, is that this is the prime minister that presided over the worst day in Israel's history. If we're talking about the security of children, he's the prime minister that presided over October 7th.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Aaron Powell And the Prime Minister was now presided over the loss of the Democratic Party in the United States and part of the Republican Party, who has been accused by the vice president of the United States of more or less being involved in a secret Mossad slash Jeffrey Epstein plot to drag America into the war and then keep America into a forever war. This is where we are.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

This just for people to understand, this was J.D. Vance on Joe Rogan's podcast implying that Epstein had access to high levels of classified information and thus was probably a Mossad agent. And that was just sort of left on the table.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

The goal was not just that, it's somehow the Mossad is implicated in trying to keep America not just in the war bag, dragging America into war, but also keeping America, forever war to serve Israeli or Jewish interests. Okay. Right. Because somebody in the White House said, you know, around four o'clock in the morning, I don't know how we're going to explain this failure, how are we going to explain this failure? How is it that we went to war and we didn't win? And someone came up with an idea. Hey, I got it. Let's blame the Jews. Okay. Truly, truly unique.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Not an original idea at this point.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Let's blame the Jews. So this is Bibi. This is Bibi now who has, in the vise of a great number of Israelis, I would say a majority of Israelis, made a Faustian deal with the Haredim to undermine the fighting spirit and in many ways betray the hundreds of thousands of reserve soldiers who have served each hundreds of days away from their families, away from their jobs, often with ruinous effect, and letting the Haredim off from serving in the military. And now they don't even get arrested for refusing to go into the military. So BB now, by law, has created two different categories of Israeli citizens, those who are above the law and those who are subject to the law. This is Netanyahu.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Aaron Powell That's not only true for the Haridim. It's true for Israeli Arabs where crime is running out of control. It's true in the Negev Desert, where the Bedouins are largely living in a lawless society. We see it throughout Israeli society.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Aaron Ross Powell And certain parts of the settler community also are not subject to Israeli law. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Another excellent point, yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

We've talked on this part many times. What I see as Israel's fundamental and domestic problem is the hemorrhaging of Israeli sovereignty, because we don't understand sovereignty. But let's not go there. What is extraordinary, but everything I'm telling you is that with all of this, Benjamin Netanyahu still stands a, you know, not an outside chance of once again being elected Prime Minister of Israel because of the babysitter.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Because they don't trust anybody else to do a better job of security?

SPEAKER_01 6:58

You know, you have someone like uh Gaudi Asencott, who certainly has a lot of security bona fides, right? Certainly does, right? He was the chief of staff. And yet he doesn't have any diplomatic experience. We're not quite sure what level of his English he speaks, has very little political experience. To take a person with little appearance and throw them right into the job of the Prime Minister of Israel is usually not a good bet. And who else? I mean, who else is going to do this? Netanyahu, arguably the greatest orator of the 21st century. It's a low bar of, but he is the greatest orator of the 21st century.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Let's list them. There's Netanyahu, he's pretty good with the speech. There was Abba Ibn, and then there's Michael Orin.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Thank you. But I'm saying the 21st century. I'm you know I'm a 20th-century man, but I'm just saying that really of leaders of the world. Listen, you asked the quote unquote the average American, or the average Canadian for that matter. Can they name the Prime Minister of Britain?

SPEAKER_00 7:50

No. And also he just quit, yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yeah, yeah, because they changed. But okay, the Prime Minister of Italy, maybe the President of France. They may have a hard time, certainly in America, definitely. Ask him who P.D. is.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah, everybody knows, and everybody has an opinion.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Aaron Powell Here is the head of a country, a minuscule country of 10 million people the size of New Jersey, and everybody knows who its leader is, and has a strong opinion of it. Whether he should be in jail or in the White House.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Well, that's my question. There was a time when people were talking about the pardon. I don't hear anything about Herzog and the pardon anymore, but the idea had been floated that perhaps he would get a pardon to not run again. Should we assume that is totally off the table? He's definitely running.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

I don't know if it was ever really on the table because the conditions for the pardon were two. One, he had to admit to wrongdoing, which he wasn't about to do, and then he had to commit to not run for any political office for seven years. And at 76 years old with some serious health issues, that's uh certainly a condition too far.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Aaron Powell And why haven't we heard anything about the pardon except for every now and then when President Trump posts something about how he insists on it?

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Yeah. He insists on it, and it actually does Netanyahu a great disservice because it eyes a Kurzog into a corner, and nobody likes the President of the United States dictating internal political affairs, uh, nor would nor would the United States like that. So it actually is not doing Bibi a service. And if you're wanting to impute to Mr. Trump long-term strategic thinking that he may not have, it's maybe he's trying to get rid of Netanyahu by doing that.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Maybe. Uh it's been suggested. But in any case, it's it seems to be off the agenda for the time being.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Do you know why that might be? Is Herzog waiting for this election to pass?

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Yeah, this is not going to happen. This is being perceived, much like the election in 2020 and 2024 in the United States, which was perceived as sort of an existential election, that American democracy was at stake. This in Israel is perceived as an existential election. There was a poll taken about two days ago that said that 23% of Israelis would consider leaving the country if Netanyahu was re-elected.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

I saw that. But we see that in American elections as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Yeah, but here backstream people do leave the country. And uh the people who answer positively to that are not the people you actually want leaving the country, certainly. And among them are members of my own family who said that we just can't live here anymore. If that's the case. You know, Israelis, many, many will say, you know, we'll deal with Hezbollah, we'll deal with Hamas, we'll deal with Iran. We cannot deal in a country where, you know, hundreds of thousands of ultra-orthodox young people basically laugh at our soldiers while they go off to war. They don't stand in detention, and in the day of a memorial day, they don't salute our flag, they don't sing our national anthem, they don't sing Katiqah, and they won't share the burden, as it's called, of being in the army. We can't do that. And um, what can I say? It's a very hard argument for me to counter. As an Israeli, as a a patriot, and someone who loves this country thoroughly, it is very difficult.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Michael, would you go work in his administration again?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Not in this one, no. No.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Well, that's telling.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

No, not in this one. No, listen, every ambassador has his red lines. This has crossed so many lead lines. Listen, I served at a time where there was basically a national unity government, included the not just the could, but labor. Our official policy was the two-state solution. You know, truly, you know, we faced formidable challenges in the Obama administration, but nothing like what Israel faces today. It was still possible to talk about bipartisanship back then. It is completely different today. And I don't I could not get up and say that there's no daylight between Israel and the United States, that we're dear friends, that we're, you know, true, true allies, and allies can have differences of opinion. You can't do that when you have an entire party that has made the isolation, if not demolition, of my country an organizing principle.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Aaron Powell Now you went on Fox News to deliver a similar message, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Aaron Ross Powell I did. I did. And it uh went sort of viral because I was asked in Fox News. They showed me a clip of Democratic members of Congress coming out of Capitol Hill and sort of celebrating on the steps, smiling, toasting one another.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Aaron Powell This is 103 Democrats that voted against any sort of military aid to Israel, both offensive and defensive.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Right. We'll start off with an understatement. I said it's curious. It's curious that these members of Congress are smiling because they've just endangered the security of their children and grandchildren. The United States has one, count them one, ally in the world that's willing to fight side by side with the United States. To fight as not just military equals, but certainly technological equals, if not beyond that. One, not the Netherlands, not France, not even Great Britain, the state of Israel, which is essential for America's security. There is no strategic rationale behind the Democrats' movement. It is purely ideological and for ideology, they are willing to render America less secure. And since all of the American aid, every last cent of the American aid, is spent in the United States as a subsidy for the American arms industry, they will now be responsible for the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. That people who make those arms, and they're going to have to go to them and explain to them that because we feel this way as an ideology, you no longer can feature families. And by the way, your family's also going to be less secure. I think it is outrageous, outrageously irresponsible. And there's no rationale. I don't know how they come before the American people and justify this. They do. They do. But remember, BB ran in the last election with huge posters showing him shaking Trump's hand, with under the logo, he's in a league by himself. Those posters are not to be seen now. Netanyahu was hoping that the Haredi legislation, the Orthodox draft uh evasion legislation will be forgotten by October 27th. He's counting on the short memory span of Israelis.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

The other short memory span is he used to talk constantly about total victory. This war was aiming for total victory. Right. And we haven't seen total victory not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, not in Iran, actually nowhere.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Right. So there we have it. So he is he is very vulnerable right now. He's very bold. And yet, I live in our neighborhood in South Tel Aviv, Jaffa, where if you say a word against Bibi, people look at you like you've just uh, you know, use some expletive inshul because no one comes close. The rest of the candidates are jokers as far as I'm concerned.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Aaron Powell True. But we see in the polls that actually other candidates are ahead. And what people have to remember is there's a difference between who wins the most seats and who has the best chance of assembling a governing coalition.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Can you walk us through that landscape?

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Okay, because you can lose the election and become prime minister. And that's precisely what happened in 2015 when Netanyahu lost the election to Sippy Livney. She could not put together a coalition. He could. And so he became prime minister. The president after the election will see okay, what party is most capable of putting together the coalition? Usually it's the party that gets the most votes, the most mandates. But in certain cases, that party can't put together a coalition for all sorts of ideological reasons. So right now, Netanyahu and his block is trailing in the polls, trailing significantly, where the bloc, the change block, led by Gaudi Asenkat, led by uh Naftali Bennett, led by uh Viktor Lieberman, led by Ayer Lapide, while I keep going, the Er Golan, okay, can muster about 59 seats, which is within striking distance of the 61, the smallest you need. And the Netanyahu block is now stuck at around 51. So that's a significant difference. It is a poll, you know. There's only one poll that counts, and that is the collection day, we know. I know because I ran for government and we were supposed to get 15 seats, and we ended up getting 10 seats. We lost a third of our seats on election day. So how'd that happen? Polls were not accurate.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

And we're really far from the election. We're three months away.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Many things can happen. That's a long time in politics. But there are other aspects which makes this election different than any other election. One aspect is the appearance of young politicians who are challenging this generation. What I would call them almost the generation after the Omkippra War. I call them Dol Sinai. Okay, this is the generation that grew up in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War and its grave disappointments. These politicians are now in their 70s. Netanyahu is a good example of that. And there are young politicians who are in their 30s, maybe the early 40s, of which Bennett is probably the oldest of them, by the way, who have now come out of Gaza, fighting in Gaza since October 7th. And they are right of center, so they're taking away votes from Netanyahu. They probably won't sit with Netanyahu. So it's a net gain for the change block. That's one aspect.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Bennett is 54 years old.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Yeah, and he's considered young-ish in Israeli politics with people now in their 30s and their 40s. So the next aspect is the for the first time, there are issues now that cut squarely across right and left. One of them is the State Commission for October 7th, where Hamas, in its generosity, quote unquote, uh, killed not only left-wingers but also right-wingers. And everyone who's a victim, and not just a victim, the relatives of victims, Israelis, reservists want a state commission to investigate the failures of October 7th. Netanyahu and his bloc want a politically appointed commission. And people oppose it say quite rightly that the government cannot investigate itself. It has to be an independent commission. Netanyahu will say, well, there's no such thing as an independent commission. However, you look at it, it's going to be subjective, especially if the Supreme Court is on it, because the Supreme Court is our enemy. But this is an issue that cuts across right and left. But the big issue, again, not to uh belabor the point, is ultra-orthodox enlistment. On October 6th, 2023, the Haredi enlistment issue was a left-wing issue. And since the war, it has become a national issue, and not just a national issue, it's a national issue that's being led by the national religious right, the people who wear the nitkipot. Why? Because they have paid disproportionately for this war. Roughly half of all our fatalities in this war have been people who wear nitkipot, kipot sugot.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Half? Really?

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Roughly half.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

That's just the fatalities. And they say, quite rightly, you know, we read the Torah, our Torah tells us we can fight. How is it your Torah, you the Haredim, how does it your Torah tells you you don't fight? And these are very uncomfortable issues for Benjamin Netanyahu. He likes right and left, clean right and left. He always likes to be in the middle of his coalition. And in this coalition, he's been the leftmost person. And here we have a strong right-wing faction, which is saying, no, we can't abide by this law that exempts and immunizes Haridim, ultra-orthodox, from military service or the penalties for not serving militarily, okay, for being basically draft dodgers. So all this throws, you know, as the British would say, a cat into the pigeons for this election. You know, this is an old British expression. Throw the cat into the pigeons. These blocks, which are pretty solid, not many people wake up in the morning and say, Well, I used to vote for BB for the last 30 years, but now I'm going to change my vote. You don't need many people like that to move from one to the other, especially since now you have right wing parties which are anti-BB, which you haven't had in the past, including right-wing parties that won't sit with them, like a Viktor Lieberman. I want to make a one line, I want to make a prediction.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

I was gonna ask you if you're willing to be in the forecasting business or the prophecy business.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

I will not be surprised if the next prime minister of Israel is a man. That's an easy one. Okay That's a no-brainer. I did a program the other night with anat Willf, who's also running and she's great. If the next Prime Minister of Israel would be Viktor Lieberman.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

What? Yep. You think that he'll be the kingmaker?

SPEAKER_01 19:36

I think that with say nine seats. Well, listen, Bennett was prime minister with six seats. Mm-hmm. He'll have nine seats. He is right-wing, he's anti-haredi, but he's also very liberal. He's against you know enforcing religious laws on secular people. He's got a lot of Russian backing. He's the kingmaker. If the results of this election are inconclusive and we have to go through yet these sort of revolving elections to go on and on and on, he could easily say, okay, we can end all this. We can get rid of Bibi, but you gotta make me prime minister.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Well, to go in 180 degrees the other direction, and not to give anybody listening a panic attack, but I believe Ben Gvir's little team has 10 seats predicted at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yeah, sure. But who's gonna sit with him?

SPEAKER_00 20:21

I don't know. I think that's my question is do you foresee him being in the government?

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Gaudi, I don't want to misquote him, but Gaudi Asenkott said, well, he can sit in my government, but he's not gonna have the same powers he had in the previous government.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

I don't know. I don't think he can promise that. You know, Benvir is a reality of Israeli politics, and many young people coming out of Gaza, after their experiences fighting there, support Benvir. I do a lot of work with the border police, and I've sat with border police officers who are very serious individuals who fought on October 7th and admire Ben Ver for what he's done for the prison service. He's basically revived Israel's prison service, an attractive place for people to work. He has all different aspects to Ben Ver beside his racism and insanity. There was a report circulating last week that he is now investigating the possibility of digging moats around, get this, digging moats around Israeli prisons, filling them with water, and then infesting the water with alligators, or maybe crocodiles.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

And is prison break a real problem in Israel?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

We've had some prison bakes, but I don't know. There's a couple of actually members of Knesset are actually looking into this. This is just reports. They're not verified. The fact that we even have reports like that and we decline to believe them is saying a lot.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

And how long before I read that they're actually like Mossad crocodiles, like the Mossad sharks?

SPEAKER_01 21:38

In the Marksad dolphins. We've had those, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

So here's we have us. We don't know, but I think we can safely say that for a great number of Israelis, this is an existential election. The state in a certain way will fall or rise on again on this election. And there are some very impressive people running, I must say. I am not among them. I'm not a legislator. I've done it, been there. But if you're going to ask me if my country calls me in any diplomatic capacity, I will go, you know, provided it doesn't cross my red lines. And as I said, every ambassador has a red line. I never came close during my term, I would come very close now.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Well, I speak for many, many people that I hope to see you again in public service.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

And when we do, we hope you'll still be visiting the podcast frequently.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

We so most importantly. Thank you, Michael.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

As always, take care.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

That's a wrap on today's episode of Boundless Insights. Whether you've been with us from the start or are just discovering our show, we're so glad you're here. If today's conversation sparked a question, challenged your thinking, or made you shake your head, I want to hear from you. Email me at podcast at boundlessisrael.org. Your feedback gives us ideas for new topics and new guests. And if you believe these conversations matter, there are three ways to support the show. First, hit that follow button so you never miss an episode. Second, help us spread the word. Share an episode with friends and family, post about it, or mention it in a group chat. It really does make a difference. And third, consider supporting our work. Boundless is a nonprofit and we rely on donors to keep the show going. You can make a gift at boundlessisrael.org slash donate. Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and keep the conversation going.