The countdown to the Israeli general elections scheduled for 27 October officially began on Tuesday (8 September) when the contending parties filed their lists of candidates with the Central Elections Committee. But many observers are fearful that sometime in the remaining six weeks the elections will be called off or indefinitely postponed, be it because of a resumption of full-scale warfare between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and/or Iran; or because of mass violence or even assassinations by supporters of incumbent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu; or because of a descent into chaos in the occupied West Bank, where government encouragement has resulted in a steep hike in Jewish settler attacks on Arab rural communities that, in turn, could trigger armed resistance by Palestinians, especially by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority’s well-armed paramilitary police force, which so far has passively watched developments from the sidelines.

But the elections may take place as scheduled. All Israelis, and most foreign observers, are at one in regarding the coming vote as “historic,” a vote that may well chart Israel’s identity and course for decades. Netanyahu and his right-wing and religious coalition partners have governed the country since 2009 (apart from an 18-month interregnum during 2021–2022) and have fashioned a polity that is increasingly expansionist and religious, in effect guided by its messianic and ultra-Orthodox extremities, where the law and its traditional guardians—the Supreme Court, the attorney-general, and the police and Shin Bet security service—have been sidelined or weaponised against the opposition. Ideology aside, behind it all lies Netanyahu’s desire to abort his ongoing trial for corruption, now in its seventh year, which is likely to result, if it ever ends, in convictions and a jail term.