Nadav Eyal joined IIJS on Wednesday, September 16, for the 2026 Jack Abel Lecture: “Israel at the Ballot Box: An Election About the Country’s Future.”
Israel’s coming elections on October 27, 2026 are widely seen as the most consequential in a generation. They will be the first national elections since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the far-reaching regional conflict that followed, and will inevitably serve, in part, as a referendum on the record of the current government and coalition.
Yet the stakes extend beyond the conventional question of who will govern Israel next. The election brings to a head political, social, and demographic transformations that have been reshaping Israeli society for decades and that touch on fundamental questions about the country’s identity and future. At issue are competing visions of Israel: its relationship to the liberal and democratic principles embedded in its founding vision, the growing political influence of religious and traditional communities, and the broader shift toward conservatism within significant parts of Israeli society.
This lecture examined the forces shaping the election, the constituencies behind them, and what the outcome may tell us about Israel after October 7. More than a contest between parties, the election may become a referendum on the kind of country Israel intends to be.
Nadav Eyal is one of Israel's most prominent journalists, and is Senior Research Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. He is winner of the Sokolov Award (Israel’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize) and recipient of the B'nai B'rith World Center Award for Journalism. He writes columns for Yediot Ahronot and Ynet, and serves as a commentator for Channel 12.
Beginning on October 7, 2023, he has focused his work on stories and analyses related to the Hamas attack and the subsequent war in Gaza and the northern border of Israel, including reporting multiple times from the field and writing the accounts of victims.
Eyal authored the bestseller "REVOLT, the Worldwide Uprising Against Globalization," which was published in 2021 by Ecco HarperCollins (USA) and Picador (UK), and has been translated into multiple languages. In 2023, Eyal published "HOW DEMOCRACY WINS (if it does)" in Hebrew. Haaretz described the book as "one of the most interesting books ever written on democracy in Hebrew."
His writings have appeared occasionally in Haaretz, the Daily Telegraph, Der Spiegel, The Washington Post, and The Daily Beast. He has also produced major documentary projects, including: Trumpland (2016), Syrian refugee crisis (2015), and Hate on rising anti-Semitism (2014).
This recording will be available to view until Wednesday, September 23, 2026.
Supported by the generosity of the Abel family.
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