Middle East Insider · Issue 070 · Tuesday, October 27, 2026

Election Day

Good afternoon. Israel is still voting as this goes out. First the day as it stands and the clock for tonight; then the Forum’s new work; then Iran and the strike plans, the Gulf, Lebanon and Gaza, and Washington and Europe.

Polls close at 10 p.m. in Israel, 4 p.m. Eastern, and the exit polls air then on Israel’s three main broadcasters, Kan and Channels 12 and 13. At that hour the Forum goes live with its Election Night Special, a webinar with Alex Selsky, the Forum’s director of Israel and East Mediterranean affairs, and me, on the exit polls, the coalition math and what the result means for the country and for American interests in the region; registration is open to all. The Forum’s poll of polls carries the campaign’s surveys and a page for every major list. The first results follow tomorrow morning.

A larger share of Israelis had voted by 6 p.m. than at that hour in any election since 1973; the prime minister told his voters the vote was being stolen from them; the committee found no sign of systematic tampering.

Israel’s Central Elections Committee put turnout at 66.7 percent at 6 p.m., nine points above the same hour in 2022 and the highest at that stage since its hourly figures began in 1973, the Times of Israel reported. The curve ran ahead all day: 16.7 percent at 10 a.m. where 2022 had 15.9, 31.5 at noon where it had 28.4, 44.9 at 2 p.m. where it had 38.9, and 55.7 at 4, more than four million voters, where it had 47.5. The committee’s acting director general, Din Livne, said of the 4 p.m. figure, “It’s the highest we’ve ever had.” Israel’s soldiers, voting at 850 military stations, had reached 68 percent by 5 p.m., against 65 in 2022. The chairman, Justice Noam Sohlberg, said waits had reached 15 to 20 minutes, and Livne promised that anyone in line at 10 p.m. will vote: “There is no need to worry.”

Late in the afternoon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud asked the committee to extend the legal voting hours and did not say why; Shas, the Sephardi Haredi party, Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit and Ofer Winter’s People of Israel joined the request for an extra hour, citing congested stations, and only Sohlberg can grant it. Yashar, the party of Gadi Eisenkot, the former army chief who is Netanyahu’s main challenger, objected: “No unusual incident has occurred to justify granting this request, which is intended to lay the groundwork for claims challenging the integrity of the election, in line with the lies Netanyahu has been spreading since this morning.” At 7:52 p.m. Livne said the committee would soon take up the requests; its presidency can extend voting by up to 24 hours only in special circumstances, and it has already ruled that “those in line at 10 o’clock p.m. will be guaranteed the right to cast their ballot.”

Netanyahu voted just after midday at a school in Jerusalem with his wife, Sara, and told reporters, “since I am not allowed to say things explicitly, I will say: Vote correctly.” In a video to Likud supporters he said “they are trying to steal the election from us,” citing the overnight arrest of three men from Bedouin communities on suspicion of bribing people to back Ra’am, the Islamist Arab party. He told them, “No beach, no barbecue, everyone goes out to vote Likud.” Mansour Abbas, Ra’am’s leader, said Netanyahu “is lying and inciting” against it, and his party called them “sham arrests that aim to thwart Ra’am and bring down voting in Arab society.” The committee’s answer to the parties came at 12:34 p.m.: “Contrary to claims circulating online, there are currently no indications of systematic tampering with ballot slips,” once Yashar, the former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad, Winter’s People of Israel, Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, Ra’am and Yoaz Hendel’s Reservists-Economic list had reported missing or defaced ballots. Sohlberg issued an interim order barring United Torah Judaism, the Ashkenazi Haredi party, from reporting voter numbers in real time, on a petition that said its polling-station members had been told to phone them to its Degel HaTorah faction. David Zini, who directs the Shin Bet, the domestic security agency, toured the command center at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, with Sohlberg and Livne and said the day had gone “well so far” and that “the elections are being monitored.”

Eisenkot began the day at Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the communities hardest hit on October 7, with the former hostage Gadi Mozes, 81, went to his son Gal’s grave at the military cemetery in Herzliya, and then voted in the city. “We are setting Israel on a new path,” he said after voting. “We will be worthy of your trust. I promise.” His party said Netanyahu “is panicking and has begun making up stories” and that “Today’s margin must be enormous, a lead that cannot be manipulated.” Aryeh Deri, the chairman of Shas, warned of “apathy in the Haredi and right-wing strongholds.” Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, urged his camp’s voters to abandon the smaller lists. Ben Gvir, who holds the national security portfolio, spoke from the Arab city of Kafr Qassem and told his supporters to counter the “crazy voting rate” in such communities. Yousef Jabareen, who leads the Joint List, the other Arab slate, answered, “The Arab public knows how to punish you today and send you and your blood-soaked government home.” Long lines and slow identification checks were reported in Arab and Bedouin towns.

The day’s violence stayed small. Police detained a Jerusalem man in his twenties standing near Yair Golan, who leads the left-wing Democrats, in Tel Aviv’s Mesila Park and found a knife under his coat. “Contrary to reports, no stabbing attempt occurred,” they said; Golan blamed “the poison machine” of Netanyahu “and his Qatari agents.” Two Democrats activists were punched at a booth in Holon, Haredi youths vandalized a stand of Charedi Public, a new ultra-Orthodox list, in the settlement of Modiin Illit and set its campaign materials on fire, and a man was shot dead in Tayibe, an Arab town in central Israel, in what police said appeared unconnected to the vote. Floods from the day’s storms closed Route 90 in the Arava, and residents of small towns there, where polls close at 8 p.m., said they could not reach their stations. By 8 p.m. no siren had sounded and no fire had come from Iran, Hezbollah or the Houthis; Israel’s army kept the West Bank’s crossings closed and its operation in Hebron, begun after Friday’s attack on a checkpoint near the city, running; the United Nations puts the displaced there at more than 3,000.

Each polling station totals its own ballots by hand as soon as it closes; the 600,000 to 650,000 double envelopes, the soldiers’ among them, follow, and officials expect the full result by Thursday afternoon. The official result is due November 4, and President Isaac Herzog then consults the parties before giving one leader 28 days to form a government. The last polls, on Friday, gave the opposition 52 to 56 seats, Netanyahu’s bloc 50 and the Arab parties 14 to 16, with three lists near the 3.25 percent threshold. President Trump repeated his endorsement on Sunday night, telling Israelis to vote for Netanyahu because “we have to finish the job that we started!” On Monday he added, “I put out both endorsements,” and Herzog, asked about it, said, “I don’t think the president of the United States or anybody else can intervene in my discretion.” Vice President Vance said last week, “I’m not endorsing Bibi Netanyahu.” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, said Monday, “I don’t think there will be an election there.” The shekel rose 1.2 percent to its strongest since October 6.

I draw three conclusions from the day so far. First, the election held, and the law for a vote under fire that I set out on Sunday was not needed. Second, the theft claim came before the evidence. More than 15,000 cameras have been set up at the polling stations, with thousands of volunteer monitors; the committee says it addresses each report at once, and Likud’s request for an extension came without a reason. I take no side in their vote, and I hold a claim of fraud to the standard I would apply at home: evidence, before the boxes are opened or after. Third, Washington’s stake. The President said on Sunday that it is “getting to be decision time” on Iran, a deal or finishing it, and he has suggested the strikes could resume after November 3; the State Department is preparing to work with whichever leadership Israelis elect, the Jerusalem Post reports. The next Israeli government will be in office when he decides, and the American interest is a partner in Jerusalem able to act with him.

MEF Observer, Israel “Will Not Agree, Under Any Circumstances, to the Establishment of a Palestinian State” (Oct 27): Alex Selsky interviews Meir Ben-Shabbat, Israel’s national security adviser from 2017 to 2021, on the “cognitive defeat” strategy of his Forum paper, which the piece sums up in one line: “Israel must shatter the Palestinians’ hope of defeating it through violence.”

MEF Observer, Dispatch from Syrian Kurdistan (Oct 27): Sirwan Kajjo reports from Qamishli after Damascus took the Semalka crossing to Iraqi Kurdistan: “Syrian flags have replaced those of the Autonomous Administration, and Kurdish symbols are nowhere to be seen.”

MEF Observer, What Might Happen If Iran Makes Good on Threats to Sever Undersea Cables (Oct 24): Shay Khatiri on the Revolutionary Guards’ October 19 and 21 warnings about the seven internet cables that pass through the Strait of Hormuz, and what cutting them would do to the Gulf.

Sunday’s Long View, The Case for a Jewish Republic, and Monday’s Mailbag are on the Insider site.

Netanyahu lobbied for a joint strike before the vote and the President said hold off, American forces are ready within 96 hours of an order, the Mecca pact’s envoys sat in Tehran, and Britain charges two men over the Fairford plot.

The strike plans. CNN reported Monday that American forces are prepared to launch new operations against Iran “within 96 hours of receiving” an order, that Israel had lobbied for joint strikes before its election, and that senior officials, President Trump among them, told it to hold off, with a combined strike likely after the midterms; the prime minister’s office called the report “fake news.” Israel’s Channel 12 reported Sunday night that the army chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, had resisted an Iran-related action before the vote and asked for signed legal authorization; Defense Minister Israel Katz denied any disagreement, said there had been no intention to attack Iran before the elections, called reports that Zamir would be dismissed “a complete fabrication and an outright lie,” and Netanyahu wrote on X, “I do not intend to dismiss the chief of staff.” President Trump said Sunday on Fox News that he must decide whether to “finish it off, which would be very easy to do,” or “make a deal.”

The talks. Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman, Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Turkey’s intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalin, met President Masoud Pezeshkian and his security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, in Tehran on Monday; an Iranian official told Reuters that nuclear questions “would not be addressed until Tehran’s demands for ending the war were met,” the end of the American blockade of its ports and of oil sanctions among them. A Qatari foreign ministry official, Ibrahim Al-Hashmi, said Tuesday, after Qatar’s own delegation visited Tehran on Sunday, “The ball is now in Iran’s court,” and Emir Tamim met Pezeshkian in Moscow the same day. Turkey’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee approved the Mecca pact, the mutual defense agreement Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey signed in August, on Tuesday. Brent settled at $115.81 on Monday. Iran’s army said Tuesday that a tanker crossing the strait by an unapproved route hit mines, two days after Adm. Brad Cooper of Central Command flew over the strait and called it “free and clear of Iranian sea mines.”

The plots. Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday that “The lethal plotting efforts by the Iranians against U.S. citizens have reached advanced stages”; two Iranian officials told the New York Times that Americans are “fair game,” and the State Department has thinned its embassies in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the Emirates. Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service charged two men, both 24, under the National Security Act on Tuesday over the plot against RAF Fairford, the Gloucestershire base from which the U.S. Air Force then withdrew its B-1 bombers; Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said the government believes Iran “played a part.” A court in Kuwait sentenced three men to death on Monday for spying for Iran, joining Hezbollah and plotting to kill the interior minister.

Riyadh takes missiles four days running, Egypt’s parliament votes to defend the Saudis, Reuters finds Hezbollah three months into rearming on Iranian cash, Hamas threatens and then denies, and Jordan answers the Karak church attack.

Saudi Arabia. The Houthis have fired at the kingdom every day since the weekend: missiles toward Riyadh on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, three at the Eastern Province before dawn on Tuesday with four drones over the south, and two more at the capital that afternoon, all intercepted by the Saudi-led coalition’s account; the Houthis claimed hits on Riyadh’s airport hours after it reopened and on the Ras Tanura refinery. Egypt’s House of Representatives voted by two-thirds on Monday to authorize President Sisi to take “necessary measures to support the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” support he said “does not include an attack on Yemen”; a Houthi political bureau member answered that the vote “declares war against the Republic of Yemen.”

Lebanon. Lebanese security sources told Reuters that Hezbollah has spent three months preparing for renewed hostilities on “tens of millions of dollars” from Iran, buying explosives, building drones and restoring the command structures that broke down at Bint Jbeil, in south Lebanon, and that it “had not yet managed to fully prepare its stockpiles or fighting force.”

Gaza and Jordan. Hamas officials told the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Gaza that the group is ready for an attack like October 7 “on any front in which this becomes possible,” a message Israel’s chief liaison to the Palestinians called one “which hasn’t been previously conveyed in this level of bluntness”; Hamas told the mediators, Asharq Al-Awsat reported Monday, that it “strongly denied” any such intention and hopes the President’s plan moves forward after Israel’s vote. Jordanian jets struck what Amman called “terrorist hideouts” in southern Syria late Monday, in answer to Friday’s attack on a church funeral in Karak; Damascus said eight civilians died and the strikes came without prior coordination. Jordan’s police arrested three men from one family after a firefight on Monday and said they “adhered to an extremist, radical ideology.”

President Trump and Barack Obama campaign in Michigan a week before the midterms, a syringe attacker is charged in Manhattan, the Board of Deputies names the Greens a racist party, and the Dutch leave Eurovision over Israel.

Washington. President Trump campaigned Sunday in Port Huron, Michigan, for the Senate nominee Mike Rogers and said of his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, “Any Jewish person that supports this guy should be ashamed of themselves”; Barack Obama campaigned in Cleveland and Detroit on Saturday against the war: “I didn’t have to fire a missile to do it; I just had to engage in diplomacy.” The midterms are next Tuesday, November 3. In Manhattan, Anna Mochalova, 32, was arraigned Sunday on hate-crime assault charges for attacking two Jewish men, one in Hasidic dress, with a syringe in the Diamond District; the police have logged 463 hate crimes this year, 52.9 percent of them antisemitic.

Europe. The Board of Deputies of British Jews voted 118 to 1 on Sunday that the Green Party of England and Wales “has, by adopting an antisemitic platform, become a racist party”; Israel turned back two British MPs and a Scottish Greens member of the Scottish Parliament at the King Hussein Bridge crossing from Jordan on Monday after eight hours of questioning, and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told the Commons the government was “deeply concerned.” The Dutch public broadcaster NPO withdrew on Tuesday from Eurovision 2027 over Israel’s participation, a day after President Herzog told the new Dutch ambassador, “There is an onslaught on Israel without understanding our role in defending Europe.” France’s interior ministry said police arrested 1,314 people at Saturday’s cost-of-living protests, with 53 officers hurt; Italian authorities detained more than 370 people over the weekend and arrested Youssef Siher, 30, the administrator of the “October 17 Movement” Instagram page, over the Milan riots. In Berlin on Saturday night a stranger asked a 60-year-old man on a park bench whether he was Jewish and, when he said yes, insulted him, threw a beer can at him and knocked him down with a punch; the state criminal police’s political-crimes unit is investigating.

Israel Insider, the Forum’s weekly program, runs Wednesday at 3 p.m. Eastern on Zoom. The Forum’s Michael Rubin gives lunch briefings in Philadelphia, November 5; Washington, November 6; Miami, November 18; Boca Raton, November 19; and Palm Beach, November 20. My own, on the midterms, Iran and Israel: Palo Alto, November 9; San Francisco, November 10; Los Angeles, November 13; San Diego, November 16; and in December, Sarasota, December 14; Boca Raton, December 16; Palm Beach, December 17; and Miami, December 18. Benjamin Baird, who directs MEF Action, the Forum’s advocacy affiliate, speaks in New York, December 3, and Daniel Pipes, the Forum’s founder, in Miami, January 19 and Palm Beach, January 20. To meet, or to host an evening for the Forum, reply to this email.

Corrections Desk. Sunday’s Long View said the Shin Bet guards Gadi Eisenkot, Yair Golan and Ofer Winter. The agency took responsibility for all three on Sunday, and the arrangements differ: Golan’s protection comes under the agency’s own responsibility at state expense, while Eisenkot and Winter are guarded by private companies run by Unit 730, its protective security unit. When this brief gets something wrong, write [email protected]; corrections run in print.

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