Israel After the 12-Day War: Netanyahu’s Stagnation, Electoral Deadlock, and the Far-Right’s Retreat

By Mansour Barati

One month after Israel’s June 13, 2025 attack on Iran and the subsequent 12-day war, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party still fail to gain a parliamentary majority in reputable polls.
Although it cannot be assumed that the war between Israel and Iran ended with the June 24 ceasefire, it appears that the war has not sufficiently increased the popularity of Benjamin Netanyahu and the ruling Likud Party.
Before the start of the 12-day war, Likud was fluctuating between 21–23 seats in reputable polls (polls by Channels 11 and 12, Maariv newspaper, and to a lesser extent Israel Hayom and Channel 13 of Israeli television). Although in a scenario without Naftali Bennett’s presence, it managed to become the leading party, the coalition of current ruling parties (Likud, far-right parties, and the two religious parties Shas and United Torah Judaism) fluctuated between 48 to 51 seats—about 10 seats short of forming a majority coalition cabinet.
Now, about a month since the beginning of the 12-day war in June 2025 between Iran and Israel, the same polls show developments that remain limited for the time being. These developments can be listed as follows:

1. The Likud Party has managed to raise its numbers in reputable polls by 4 seats and is now fluctuating between 26 to 27 seats.
2. As a result, Likud has overtaken Naftali Bennett’s new party—currently operating under the provisional name “Bennett 2026”—and is now at the top of the party rankings.
3. At the coalition level, the bloc of ruling coalition parties is still fluctuating between 48 to 51 seats, and in this regard, no significant positive change has yet occurred in favor of Netanyahu.
4. In these circumstances, more than 60 percent of Likud’s gains in the polls stem from the decline of the far-right “Jewish Power” party led by Itamar Ben Gvir, and the increasing distance of the other far-right Israeli party, “Religious Zionism” led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, from the electoral threshold of 3.25 percent.

In the present analysis, we will examine the reasons behind this situation. It seems that the main factors shaping these conditions can be found in three elements: the outstanding importance and magnitude of the October 7, 2023 failure and the responsibility borne by Benjamin Netanyahu and the ruling coalition for it; the failure to achieve all the publicly declared ambitious goals of the 12-day war; and finally, the abnormal, excessive, and indeed seasonal rise of the far-right faction.

October 7 and the 12-Day War

The magnitude of the October 7, 2023, defeat has had more influence than any other factor on the current situation of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party. This defeat occurred primarily in two domains: security and military. Israel’s powerful security agencies (including Shin Bet and the military intelligence directorate) failed to anticipate the Palestinian groups’ pre-operation moves and did not issue an effective warning that could have led to force mobilization and preventive action.

The second aspect of Israel’s failure on October 7, 2023, lies in its inability to prevent Hamas’s military operation from progressing in its initial hours—an operation that resulted in the advance of Palestinian forces into cities near the Gaza Strip and the killing of around 1,200 Israelis.

This event can be compared in Israeli history to the Yom Kippur War, during which the governments of Egypt and Syria launched surprise attacks from the south and north on October 6, 1973, starting a war with Israel. The first week of that war saw Arab states succeed and the Israeli army retreat. The Yom Kippur War took place only six years after Israel’s stunning victory in the Six-Day War of June 1967 and shattered the illusion that Israel would always prevail militarily over Arab states. That defeat led to the establishment of a fact-finding committee headed by Shimon Agranat, then Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, to investigate the degree of responsibility among various political, military, and security officials.

The reputational cost of the surprise in the Yom Kippur War was so high that despite being exonerated, then-Prime Minister Golda Meir permanently withdrew from politics in 1974.

In the case of the October 7, 2023, surprise, however, Benjamin Netanyahu has not shown any sense of responsibility. Instead, he has blamed all officials at the security, military, and relevant agency levels, while declaring himself free of any wrongdoing. At one point, to evade responsibility, he even compared October 7 to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II and asked: “Did anyone hold Franklin Roosevelt, the then-President of the United States, responsible for Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor?”

Accordingly, Netanyahu has resisted the formation of an impartial fact-finding committee to investigate the officials responsible for the October 7, 2023, defeat. He and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, due to serious disagreements with Isaac Amit, the new liberal-leaning Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, even boycotted his inauguration ceremony at the Israeli President’s residence on suspicion that he might seek to establish a fact-finding committee for the October 7 failure.

Netanyahu has made considerable efforts to form internal committees within the army, Shin Bet, and Mossad, both to confine the defeat solely to the security–military layer and to reduce public demand for the formation of an independent fact-finding committee by releasing reports from these internal bodies.

He has also tried, throughout the 22 months since October 7, to downplay the importance of addressing these failures in Israeli society by showcasing military and security achievements in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran.

Nevertheless, it seems that the deadlock caused by the October 7, 2023, events remains Israel’s most significant issue and challenge, and the 12-day war with Iran has not managed to break this deadlock or move beyond it.

Failure to Fully Achieve the Declared Ambitious Goals in the 12-Day War

In the recent war with Iran, Israel has achieved successes in various offensive and defensive domains—such as weakening Iran’s nuclear capabilities, diminishing its missile power, and reinforcing Israeli air superiority, which at best may shift the deterrence and balance equation in Israel’s favor against Iran.

However, the ambitious goals publicly declared by Israeli officials—such as the “complete destruction of Iran’s nuclear program” and its “missile capability” (both offensive and defensive), as well as altering the structure of the Iranian government—have not been fully realized.

Moreover, with the establishment of the ceasefire, both sides have been able to regroup, giving Iran the opportunity to recover its position. From this perspective, it must be emphasized that the failure to fully achieve the declared goals of the war against Iran is another factor that has prevented any significant change in Netanyahu’s standing.

The Overgrowth of the Far-Right Faction Since 2019

The third factor that must be emphasized here is the unusual state of the far-right faction in recent years. After the experience of the Kach Party, led by Meir Kahane, which entered the Knesset once in the 1984 elections but was disqualified by the Supreme Court in 1988 due to its overt racism and barred from participating in future elections, far-right parties were gradually pushed out of Israel’s political sphere and lost their position. This marginalization was exacerbated by the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995. As a result, far-right figures were forced to operate under parties that did not publicly identify as far-right, settling for labels such as “national-religious” or “nationalist right.”

However, the electoral crisis that began in Israel in 2019—leading to five consecutive elections through the end of 2022—allowed far-right parties to exceed their previous marginal status and present themselves as representatives of a segment of society frustrated with the dominant mainstream parties.

For example, in the April 2019 elections, a list of three far-right parties under the name “Union of Right-Wing Parties” (consisting of The Jewish Home led by Rafi Peretz, the National Union led by Bezalel Smotrich, and Jewish Power led by Itamar Ben Gvir) barely secured 5.7% of the vote and ended with 7 seats.

In the September 2019 elections, two right-wing parties led by Ayelet Shaked and the National Union led by Rafi Peretz formed a list called Yamina and gained 7 seats with 260,000 votes. In this election, Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power Party failed to cross the electoral threshold with less than 2% of the vote, wasting around 83,000 votes.

The next election, held in March 2020, saw part of the far-right vote shift back to the Likud Party. Meanwhile, the Yamina alliance received around 20,000 fewer votes and lost one seat, and Ben Gvir’s vote count was halved.

In the March 2021 elections, due to the failure of the centrist bloc led by Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, smaller parties performed better: Yamina gained 273,000 votes and secured 7 seats on its own, while a coalition of three far-right parties under the name “Religious Zionism” won 6 seats with 225,000 votes.

The most outstanding performance of the far-right came in the November 2022 elections, when the same alliance gained more than 500,000 votes (nearly 11% of all ballots), securing 14 seats. Of those, 7 seats went to Religious Zionism led by Smotrich, 6 to Jewish Power led by Ben Gvir, and 1 to the small party Noam led by Avi Maoz.

Three main reasons can be given to explain this stunning success of the far-right faction:

1. The holding of five elections in less than four years led a large segment of Israeli society to turn away from the so-called mainstream parties and lean toward more fringe parties. A similar trend can be seen in Germany between 1928 and 1933, where the electoral crisis contributed to the Nazi Party’s rise under Adolf Hitler—from 12 seats (2.6% of the vote) to 288 seats (44% of the vote).
2. The serious increase in the far-right’s share was also due to their time spent in the opposition during the year and a half leading up to the 2022 elections, and the concurrent decline of the ruling coalition’s parties.
3. The third reason lies in the maximalist alliance among the three far-right parties, combined with the insufficient alliance-building among Netanyahu’s opposition. In that election, the Labor Party refused to join forces with another left-wing party, and as a result, Meretz, despite receiving more than 150,000 votes, fell short of the 3.25% electoral threshold by just 4,000 votes and lost 4 seats.

Similarly, the Arab party Balad (National Democratic Assembly) led by Sami Abu Shehadeh failed to enter the Knesset by a margin of 16,000 votes, causing another 4 seats to slip from the hands of the anti-Netanyahu bloc.

In reality, the far-right’s success in the 2022 elections was a result of the decline of the major parties (including Likud and Yesh Atid), the continuation of the electoral crisis and political instability, and the failure of other parties to form alliances. The current movement of some of their votes is also driven by the fact that their success in the previous election was somewhat inflated compared to their actual support base in Israeli society.

Once these voters perceive major parties like Likud as successful again, they will return to Likud. Thus, the share of parties participating in polls and elections under an overt far-right banner has decreased after the 12-day war. This is especially due to the current lack of coalition among far-right parties, as all three are now competing separately in polls.

Under current conditions, although the 12-day war with Iran has boosted Likud’s share in the polls, this increase has coincided with a relative decline of the far-right parties. In essence, Likud has, for the time being, improved its position through “intra-camp cannibalism.” In the coming days, the political sphere may be influenced by the movements of Gadi Eisenkot, former Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, who recently left the National Unity Alliance led by Benny Gantz and is highly likely to form an alliance with Naftali Bennett.