October 24, 2026
The final days of the Israeli elections scheduled for 2026 are witnessing a heated political battle concentrated in the periphery cities and regions that have long formed the traditional electoral reservoir for the Likud Party. According to a report prepared by journalist Morane Azoulay on the “ynet” website, the current campaign is taking place in a less vociferous tone compared to previous sessions, but the intense competition is taking place around attracting what is known as the “Eastern voice,” under the basic assumption that a large segment of the Likud audience has become hesitant following the events of October 7 and the government’s attempts to exempt the Haredim from military service.
At the heart of this strategy, Yashar Party leader Gadi Eisenkot is leading a focused campaign targeting what his team called the “40 golden cities,” taking advantage of the fact that he is an Eastern candidate of Moroccan origins. The list of these cities includes Eilat, Dimona, Beersheba, Netanya, Hadera, Afula and Holon. The city of Eilat, where Eisenkot spent his childhood, received “special treatment” and huge budgets, in addition to his campaign’s incursions into towns that the liberal camp had previously ceded to Likud.
To strengthen its presence, the “Yashar” party raised slogans in the Moroccan dialect in the periphery cities bearing the phrase “Prime Minister of Our Country” (Prime Minister of Ours). The party’s internal opinion polls showed that Eisenkot does not arouse negative feelings among right-wing voters and the Eastern public, but rather is seen as an acceptable and beloved candidate, which may prompt these voters to stay at home and not go out to vote for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even if they do not vote for Eisenkot directly.
At the field level, Eisenkot’s team directed its efforts and resources towards the cities of the peripheries, the religious public and those wearing the skullcap, including holding a large conference in Givat Shmuel to attract religious Zionist votes, at a time when almost no budgets or human efforts were allocated to the liberal cities in Tel Aviv, based on ensuring the superiority of the Change camp there, with the battle being decided based on the possible low voter turnout in the peripheries.
On the other hand, Likud is waging its traditional battle in its strongholds, but with a less severe tone in its personal attacks against Eisenkot compared to what characterized its dealings with previous opponents such as Benny Gantz. A senior Likud official explained to “ynet” that the party avoids excessive attacks to preserve the votes of the moderate right, focusing only on Eisenkot’s accusation that he “will form a government with the Arab parties” under the slogan “Right or Palestine,” in addition to limited criticism of his level of English by Netanyahu’s advisor Yonatan Urich, and the ridicule of candidate Yaakov Bardugo.
In another incident, a comment by Yinon Magal, the presenter and presenter of the “Hepatriotic” program on Channel 14, when he described Eisenkot as a “monkey” and claimed that he was run by Ashkenazis, contributed to giving Eisenkot an additional point in his campaign based on the sectarian dimension.In the same context, Likud refrained from fielding Eastern candidates who were associated with the discourse of marginalization, to avoid alienating voters.
A senior official in the Change camp concluded that the battle is not related to a direct transfer of votes, but rather to Eisenkot’s success for the first time as a right-wing and Moroccan candidate that does not mobilize the right-wing camp, which makes the cities of the peripheries, and not Tel Aviv, the decisive arena for determining the outcome of the 2026 elections.
