At the end of the long summer vacation of July-August, after the public was on vacation and was mainly interested in the teachers' strike and the return to school on September 1, the political system now hopes to capture the attention of Israeli society again regarding November 1, and the parties' campaigns will soon pick up speed.
"Israel Today" gives you an order - what is the status of the parties, what are the expected challenges and what will the campaigns look like?
Likud
Netanyahu is busy these days with unifications within the right-wing camp in preparation for the closing of the lists.
The Likud chairman succeeded in his first task of uniting Smotrich and Ben Gvir, a move that will ensure that the two pass the percentage of the block and will also allow Netanyahu a margin of safety to "drink" a few mandates from them. Now Netanyahu is working on connecting Agudat Israel with Degal HaTorah, but at Beit Rabbi Edelstein, The leader of the Lithuanian public made it clear to Netanyahu that there is no place for him to intervene, claiming that this is an ideological dispute. At the same time, Likud is also disturbed by the separate running of "Noam". As for the campaign - alongside the negative messages that Gantz and Yair Lapid will sit together with the joint list, Likud is concentrating an effort in the campaign about the cost of living and will increase it even more during the holidays.Also, Likud is working on streamlining the system to get people out of the house, after analyzing that many of the Likud voters did not vote in the previous elections.
There is a future
After last time Lapid played a team game within the bloc, this time Bish Atid decided to go for the whole pot, and the main goal is not only to be the largest party in the bloc but to open a significant gap over the other parties, with an emphasis on Gantz's state camp, in order to deny his legitimacy to receive the The mandate to form a government and narrow the gap with the Likud.
Towards the closing of the lists, Lapid's main challenge is to bring about a union between Meretz and Labor.
Lapid wants to connect them to allow himself to "drink" mandates from them with confidence that they will definitely pass the percentage of blocking.
In the meantime, in Beish Atid they are trying to remove from the race all kinds of small lists which according to the polls could burn votes, such as Eli Avidar, Hadar Mokhtar and Yaron Zelicha's economic party.
Bish Atid is preparing for two campaigns: the first is a campaign for Lapid as prime minister, in which they will try to emphasize that Lapid is a state-oriented, unifying prime minister, to show that he represents all the communities in Israel that were excluded during Netanyahu's rule, such as the LGBT community, and more. The second campaign by the Yesh Atid is expected to be more aggressive and emphasize the negative while intimidating, along the lines of "Would you like a government in which Smotrich is Minister of Education, Ben Gabir is Minister of TP and Amsalem is Minister of Justice?".
In addition, in the future they are trying to walk between the drops - on the one hand to disqualify a meeting with the partner, on the other hand to maintain a channel in front of them in order to win the recommendation of the partner to receive the mandate to form a government the day after the elections.
Religious Zionism - Jewish power
After the union between Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, the two decided to put all the sediment aside and set a goal: the third largest party with a double-digit number of mandates.
The party leaders decided to act in the form of a campaign with two heads: Ben Gabir will do a separate campaign for the periphery, the traditional public and the young voters.
The internal studies show that Ben Gabir is a brand among the young people, most of whom did not go out to vote in the previous times.
Smotrich will concentrate on a campaign that is more oriented towards religious Zionism in all its aspects.
The main challenges of the two are to stop Netanyahu's drinking of mandates in the last line of the elections, and in addition to bring in the moderate religious Zionist voters who are now camped with Shaked and even with Kahana - a move that could increase Netanyahu's bloc.
Ben Gabir also has a significant amount of potential voters who did not vote last time, his challenge will be to get them out of the houses.
The state camp
The polls still do not predict the number of mandates they expected for the alliance between Gantz, Sa'ar and Eisenkot.
The party claims that the union happened early and during the summer vacation people were not paying attention to the fact that Eisenkot joined and the meaning of the union.
After they have finished with the birthing ropes, and the internal synchronization within the party between all the forces that have joined, Gantz will try to prevent the leakage of Lish Atid votes and convince the public that he can form a government that will unite the blocs the day after the elections, using the public sentiment that indicates that many are fed up with politics and the mutual boycotts.
Alongside this, Matan Kahane is expected to invest a lot of effort in the religious-nationalist sector in an attempt to bring votes from Mashhad, which in fact reflects the only axis through which votes from the Netanyahu bloc can move to the opposite bloc.
Torah Judaism
"Degal HaTorah" led by Moshe Gafni (Lithuanian faction) and Agudat Israel (Hasidic faction) are still quarreling with each other, while threatening to run separately.
The official reason is an ideological struggle on the issue of education between the Lithuanians and Hasidim.
At the same time, under the Torah flag, they are also fighting for places, the leadership of the United List and positions, claiming that they are stronger in the ultra-orthodox sector than the Hasidic faction.
Netanyahu is trying to intervene in the crisis, but at Rabbi Edelstein's house they stop him and claim that there is no place to intervene in the ideological issues in the sector.
The assessment is that finally the crisis will be resolved and they will run together.
Shas
Derai doesn't have too many problems with submitting the list.
The Shas campaign meanwhile places emphasis on the traditional public and less on the hardcore ultra-Orthodox, while the party emphasizes even more the weak strata who do not make it through the month due to the cost of living. The question is whether the passing of Hacham Shalom Cohen is likely to affect Shas, and whether it will lose mandates Ben Gvir
Now, according to the polls, she mostly keeps 8 mandates.
The Arab parties
In the joint venture, there are power struggles between Ahmed Tibi and Ayman Odeh and the Balad party. The latter, which has only one representative, wants more places on the list and threatens that if Tibi and Odeh do not commit that they will not recommend any candidate for prime minister - they will run separately. In the event that Balad does not passes the blocking percentage, the votes that are burned may help Netanyahu, as well as prevent him from forming a blocking bloc to form a government.
On the other hand, Mansour Abbas managed to put together a list that is more in line with his positions - while last time Walid Taha and Mazen Ganaim were considered to be in opposition to him, now the leader of the faction, the representative of the Negev who is considered close to Abbas, came in third place.
This time Ra'am is not enough for the group of Netanyahu's opponents to form a government and they will be required to rely on the joint list from the outside, so Tibi and Odah move to the front of the stage.
the job
Merav Michaeli found herself in a difficult situation.
Instead of launching the campaign, she is forced to face a campaign from Lapid to unite with Meretz, which erodes her party in the polls and causes fights in the change bloc.
Michaeli's challenge will be both to emphasize the differentiation from Meretz and - in the absence of a security figure and with a young list - to be more attractive and attract centrists from Magantz, Eisenkot and Malpid.
March
Along with a negative campaign about Ben Gabir and Netanyahu, Meretz is expected to emphasize the ideological side in the campaign, emphasizing the issue of equality in all areas and appeal to the disillusioned with labor, and even try to bite the voters of Yesh Atid.
Meretz's main challenge is differentiating himself from the Labor Party, bringing in voters from the Arab sector, an attempt to open a gap in the blocking percentage and to repel the attempt to drink the mandates that Yair Lapid is trying to make to small parties in the bloc.
Israel is our Home
Before the closing of the lists, the party is expected to make changes to the list for the Knesset, but apparently not drastic changes.
Lieberman's challenge is in his position as finance minister during a high cost of living period.
Lieberman was able to curb a significant electoral cost if the Treasury did not reach an agreement with the teachers and the school year did not start as a series.
Alongside this, the various parties - mainly in the Netanyahu bloc - will strongly attack the cost of living.
It can already be seen that Lieberman is continuing the line of attacking Netanyahu on every possible platform, along with denying the possibility of cooperation with the ultra-Orthodox.
Lieberman is still around 5 mandates in most of the polls, but the party is not worried about that and they say that it is difficult to survey the party's supporters and in the end they always get more at the ballot box.
The Zionist spirit
Shaked is in the trap.
People tend not to vote for parties that do not pass the polling percentage even if they support them.
Shaked is trying to strengthen himself mainly among the religious Zionists who do not want to vote for Smotrich and Ben Gvir or for Likud.
Her struggle is two-fold - on the one hand, the Netanyahu bloc is working against her and claims that she will go with the left, and Matan Kahana, on the other hand, also bites at voters who were previously on the right and claims that she will go with Netanyahu.
While Abir Kara left her party, Shaked is conducting negotiations with the Jewish Home, but it is not certain whether such an alliance will help her. In addition, a connection with the Jewish Home may push candidates on her behalf such as Amitai Porat and Zvi Hauser back on the list.
Between Avidar and Hadar Mukhtar
Eli Avidar tries to produce a technical block to pass the blocking percentage.
Any connection that is against Netanyahu is acceptable as far as Avidar is concerned, and he has already tried to do so with Ra'am and even with Hadar Mokhtar's youth party, which is gaining momentum in the polls. These parties tend to be underestimated, but anyone who does not pass the threshold could decide the election one way or the other.
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