As elections loom, voters must choose the right pilot to navigate political turbulence - editorial

OCTOBER 4, 2026 05:55Updated: OCTOBER 4, 2026 05:58When 166 Israeli passengers boarded a flydubai flight to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, they did not imagine having to intervene to save their own lives from an attempted terrorist hijacker.According to the ongoing investigation, the Omani co-pilot stabbed the captain and attempted to take control of the aircraft, sending the plane plunging thousands of feet before Israeli passengers – and the wounded captain – helped stop him.The 174 passengers, including the 166 Israelis, had entrusted those in the cockpit to get them safely to their destination.Instead, when the cockpit became the source of the danger, they had to take matters into their own hands – even shaking two pilots traveling among the passengers into action, as one passenger recounted in an interview with The Jerusalem Post’s editor-in-chief, Zvika Klein.Israeli's political reality parallels flydubai incidentThere is an uncomfortable parallel to Israel’s political reality as the country heads toward the October 27 election, as Israelis attempt to shake their leaders into action.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets ''heroes'' who intervened on a flydubai flight bound to Israel from the United Arab Emirates, in Jerusalem Thursday, 1st October 2026 (credit: AMOS BEN GERSHOM/GPO)Israel’s political system has had its own trouble in the cockpit. For years, Israelis have watched their politics and security become consumed by foreign considerations, coalition survival, and internal squabbles.Governments have been formed only to become trapped by the competing interests holding them together, while the state is left paralyzed and unable to deal with the challenges in front of it.Between April 2019 and November 2022, Israelis were sent to the polls five times in less than four years. Five elections were required before the political system finally produced a government that could command a stable enough parliamentary majority to govern.The first election, in April 2019, ended without Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being able to form a coalition. The same happened after the September election.In an attempt to break the deadlock, Benny Gantz then fractured his own Blue and White faction to enter a unity government with the prime minister. That government was supposed to end the political crisis.Instead, it lasted only months before collapsing amid disputes over the state budget – and Israelis went back to the polls, forced to make the decisions their leaders could not.The fourth election, in March 2021, did produce a government – but Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid’s diverse coalition lasted only a year before internal disagreements and defections brought it down.Netanyahu returned to power at the end of 2022 with a government that appeared to have the parliamentary numbers to last.October 7 exposed devastating failures in Israel's political, security establishmentsThen October 7 happened.The Hamas massacre exposed devastating failures across Israel’s political and security establishment. Despite an initial attempt at forging unity, the war that followed only deepened political divisions that had already been tearing at the country.And nearly three years later, some of the most fundamental questions raised by October 7 remain unresolved.There is still no state commission of inquiry into the failures that allowed the massacre to happen. At the same time, the government has been repeatedly threatened by the issue of conscription of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men into the IDF – an issue that has taken on an entirely different weight since October 7 and the military’s manpower crisis.The result has been another political crisis in which the survival of the coalition has become deeply intertwined with an issue that has divided Israeli society.Israel’s political camps have increasingly pulled away from one another, with fewer areas of agreement and less willingness to compromise.The result is a political system in which forming a government has become increasingly difficult, and keeping one together even harder.Later this month, Israelis will again be asked to decide who they want leading the country.And once again, politicians have left Israelis with a choice that is not simply about who gets the most seats, but whether the passengers can give the pilots a clear enough mandate to actually fly the plane.This is the cycle Israel needs to break.The passengers aboard the flydubai flight did not have the luxury of leaving the cockpit unresolved. They knew that if they did not take action to save their own lives, no one would.Israeli voters will have their own chance to take control and choose who sits in the cockpit. After that, it will be up to the pilots to put their differences aside and form a coalition capable of keeping the plane on course.Follow us on Google