Last week’s election results exposed one of Israeli democracy’s most fascinating paradoxes: The very system created to govern the Jewish state gives political power to parties that reject the principles upon which it was founded. And now most Israelis are asking: Should parties that reject the ideological foundations of the Jewish state be entrusted with shaping its future?
Israeli political parties present a peculiar arrangement in which groups that reject the founding premises of the state can still win seats and sit in the Knesset while proposing to participate in its governance. This arrangement follows from the decision to establish Israel as a democracy after the state had already been created on the basis of Zionism. Zionism itself was a political doctrine that asserted the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. It did not originate as a program for democratic government. Early Zionist ranks included communists who imagined a Jewish state organized along collectivist lines, and the Soviet Union initially supported the new state in part because it saw the possibility of a communist Israel. The Declaration of Independence contains no reference to democracy at all.
Israel nevertheless chose democratic institutions, and that choice opened the door for parties that do not accept Zionism to compete and enter the legislature. Section 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset, enacted in 1985 and building on the 1965 Yardor ruling, permits the Central Elections Committee to bar parties or candidates whose goals or actions negate Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, incite racism, or support armed struggle against the state. The Supreme Court retains final review and has applied the provision narrowly. It demands a critical mass of clear and unambiguous evidence that the prohibited objective constitutes a dominant aim rather than an isolated statement, and it places a high value on broad democratic participation. As a result, attempts to disqualify Arab or other anti-Zionist lists are regularly overturned, including in the 2026 elections, while the Court has sustained disqualifications mainly against extreme cases such as Kach. The evidentiary threshold and the Court’s restraint have made consistent exclusion of anti-Zionist lists uncommon and difficult to achieve.
In the most recent elections, two sets of parties that do not identify as Zionist gained representation in the Knesset – one of them in record numbers. One set consists of Arab parties and the other of chareidi parties. Neither group regards itself as Zionist, yet both were permitted to run and now sit in the legislature. Many Israelis who identify with Zionism would prefer that Zionist parties set the anti-Zionist lists aside and assemble a government composed solely of parties that accept the state’s Jewish and democratic character.
The two groups differ in the substance of their opposition. The Arab parties seek the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state and its replacement by a state of all its residents. They support the establishment of a Palestinian state, decline to designate Hamas a terrorist organization, and refuse to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Their program points toward a government that would rule the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea under Palestinian leadership. Arab party Ta’al member Ahmad Tibi has said, “I certainly oppose Zionism and the Jewish character of the State… a state can’t be equal and democratic and prefer one ethnic group over another.” Tibi has also said: “I’m a victim of Zionism… It’s inhumane to demand that we be loyal to Zionism or accept Israel as a Jewish state,” and “I don’t recognize Israel as Jewish.” Tibi consistently advocates turning Israel into a “state of all its citizens and nationalities” rather than a Jewish nation-state.
The chareidi parties stand at a greater distance from outright anti-Zionism. Their objections are primarily theological. They accept the basic principle that the Jewish people possess a right to self-determination in the land, yet they reject the secular character of the present government and, in some cases, the decision to establish a sovereign state before the arrival of the Messiah. They do not advocate replacing the Jewish state with a Palestinian one, nor do they favor a government that would rule from the river to the sea under Palestinian authority. Rabbi Dov Landau, the spiritual leader of Degel HaTorah, wrote in a letter in the newspaper Yated Ne’eman directing followers and representatives, “Zionism is a movement whose purpose is to establish the Jewish people on an explicitly secular foundation, rooted in heresy and rebellion against divine sovereignty. All the national institutions are built upon this ideology… There is no allowance to participate with them, serve in any role within their institutions, or vote in their elections in any form whatsoever.”
Zionist Israelis have grown weary of parties that do not share the state’s foundational commitments. They express particular concern that chareidi separatist practices weaken national cohesion and place long-term pressure on the economy through low workforce participation and high reliance on public support. Those concerns, however, remain milder than the objections directed at the Arab parties. The latter are viewed as a direct challenge to the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state, and that perception produces sharper resistance when questions of coalition partners or legislative majorities arise.
The sharp distinction between non-Zionist reservation and outright anti-Zionist rejection is not a minor theological footnote. It is a live political fault line that shapes public opinion, coalition math, and the daily calculations of anyone who still treats a secure Jewish majority and genuine Jewish self-determination as the non-negotiable purpose of the state. One side may withhold ideological blessing while still living inside the system and taking its benefits; the other actively works to strip the state of its Jewish character, its symbols, and ultimately its right to exist as a Jewish nation-state. That difference decides who can be trusted as a partner and who must be treated as a permanent adversary.
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