Editor’s Notes: I believed in Israel’s third bloc until pollsters proved me wrong - comment

SEPTEMBER 25, 2026 05:58I was wrong about Israel’s third bloc. I also wanted it to succeed.I wanted a political force strong enough to make the moderate parties of the Center-Right and Center-Left form a broad unity government. Enough seats to force politicians who could find endless reasons to avoid each other to discover reasons to sit together.After the October 7 massacre and the war, I thought that was possible. I wrote columns explaining why.The polling has forced me to reconsider. The independent camp I expected has failed to take shape. We are back to Bibi or no Bibi.Wanting a broad government seems to me a perfectly reasonable position. Forecasting the emergence of a bloc that could force one into existence required evidence. I gave the possibility more weight than the campaign has justified, and I have to ask how much wanting that outcome influenced my judgment.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a Likud election campaign event ahead of the upcoming general elections, in Tel Aviv, September 17, 2026. (credit: FLASH90)In August, I wrote about conversations around me in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem: at the kiddush after going to the synagogue, in the supermarket, at the park. People who had voted the same way for years were reconsidering their choices. They remained on the Right. Some were moving further Right. Their attachment to particular politicians had weakened.My own thinking had changed, too. For years, I had argued that persuading haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men to serve in the military would achieve more than coercion. During the war, I came to support financial consequences for avoiding service. I knew how far I had moved on a question I had written about repeatedly.I thought enough changes like these could produce a new political alignment. In that August column, I wrote: “Israel is going through the same thing with the lights on and pollsters in the room, failing to measure it.”I was confident enough to suggest that the pollsters were missing something. Their numbers have since given me reason to question my own reading.There was a leap in the argument. Dissatisfied voters still have to agree on where to go. Two reservists can agree about the unfairness of the burden they carry and disagree completely about who should be prime minister. A voter can lose faith in one right-wing politician and choose another who intends to join the same coalition. Changed loyalties can move seats around inside an existing camp.The third bloc I imagined also had to do something quite demanding with those seats. It had to remain together, make a broad government a condition of its support, and leave the larger parties dependent on that support. Each step could fail. Even a respectable election result would have been only the beginning.Those promising unity struggled to uniteInstead, some of the people promising unity struggled to unite with one another.On September 4, Gilad Erdan withdrew his Unity party from the election, citing insufficient support and unsuccessful efforts to join forces with other parties. An N12 poll had put a potential combination of Unity and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White at 2.6%, below the 3.25% threshold for entering the Knesset.Erdan said voters were primarily looking for an answer to “the question of who will be prime minister.” That was a fairly direct assessment from someone whose political offer had depended on voters giving a different question priority.The negotiations also exposed a familiar problem. Asked by Walla why he insisted on leading a merged list, Gantz answered: “Because I need to lead this path.”A project that asks parties across the political spectrum to compromise needs leaders capable of doing so themselves. The order of names on a list is a useful place to start. Those failed talks give us reason to examine the politicians’ decisions alongside the voters’ choices.Some new lists remain. In the September 18 Maariv poll conducted by Lazar Research, Yoaz Hendel, and Yaron Zelekha’s joint list received four seats, as did Ofer Winter’s People of Israel. Both were narrowly above the electoral threshold. Winter’s seats were counted in the Netanyahu camp.Four seats can matter enormously in a parliament of 120, where a majority requires 61. Those lists may yet affect who can form a government. The substantial independent camp I expected has nevertheless failed to emerge.I also underestimated what the Netanyahu question would mean after October 7.I had expected the scale of the catastrophe and the demands of the war to create pressure for a broad government. They could also make the choice of prime minister feel more consequential. A voter who holds Netanyahu responsible has a powerful reason to insist on his departure. A voter who trusts him most on security has a powerful reason to insist that he stay. The same war can deepen both convictions.Mere calls for unity can not resolve disagreementCalling for unity does very little to resolve that disagreement. Any party seeking to force a broad government has to explain whether it would serve under Netanyahu, what conditions it would set, and what it would do if those conditions were rejected. The answer could cost precisely the voters it was trying to bring together.That is a harder problem than getting people to agree that the country needs unity. I gave too much weight to the apparent demand for a broad government, and too little to the compromises people would have to accept to produce one.The election is still ahead. Polls can change, and small parties can cross the threshold or fall below it. But the weak numbers and failed attempts to build a common political vehicle are evidence I have to take seriously now. A columnist cannot keep extending the deadline for his own argument until it comes true.I still want a broad government of the moderate Center-Right and Center-Left. I think it would give Israel a better chance of making decisions on military service, rebuilding, and responsibility for October 7 that could survive beyond one coalition.The route I expected to get us there has failed in this campaign. A third bloc may have another chance in another election.I would need to see leaders able to work together, voters prepared to accept the necessary compromises, and a credible way to turn their votes into a broad government. I owe readers that evidence before making the prediction again.Follow us on Google