Elections are one of the modern mechanisms by which nations determine the course of various affairs, resolving difficult questions by making the attainment of a “majority” a means of preventing conflict and violence. Our region is now approaching three elections that could have a significant impact on its future, even though they are taking place in three different arenas.
First, there are the US midterm elections for the House of Representatives and the Senate. These are a regular feature of the constitutional system, contested by Democrats and Republicans. Traditionally, the party that does not hold the White House tends to perform well in them. The idea was embedded in the Constitution as a safeguard against the “tyranny of the majority.” Yet the elections scheduled for November 3 could now become the prelude to another possible round of war between the United States and Iran.
Second, there are Israel’s periodic elections to determine who will lead the Jewish state through the next phase of the war with Hamas or Iran, or perhaps both. Alternatively, the tables may turn, with the election once again failing to produce a majority and voters being sent back to the polls. It has been said that this could happen as many as five consecutive times when the blocs are evenly matched and no one can assemble the 61-seat majority required in the Knesset.
Third, and no less strange, are the Palestinian elections that were never completed. The Palestinians had concluded that restoring political legitimacy required returning to the voters to determine who would command the majority during the next phase of the national struggle.
A decision was issued setting November 28 as the date for the Palestinian people to choose their future, despite the obstacles known in advance to stand in the way as a result of Israeli actions in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. What happened, however, was that those obstacles were discovered all over again, and another date was set: September 11, 2027.
What connects these three elections is the current reality in the Middle East, where different wars have accumulated one on top of another. After three years of the Gaza war, numerous domestic and external dynamics, shaped by history and military power, have made the electoral question particularly fraught.
The US elections reveal the extent of President Donald Trump’s influence, with all his distinctive characteristics, particularly after he launched a revolt against America’s history of “forever wars.” The brief experience of the Venezuela war made another such experiment tempting. It began with the 12-day war in June 2025 and was followed by a war that had been expected to last between four and six weeks but, by the time of the elections, had stretched to eight months. War imposed itself on American politics, and the contest for votes was shaken at energy and electricity facilities.
The Israeli elections are governed, first, by memories of what did not happen after October 7, 2023: no commission of inquiry was formed comparable to the Agranat Commission, which investigated the “failures” of the October 1973 war. That commission ultimately brought down Prime Minister Golda Meir, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, and many others. The time has come for the same standards to be applied to the current government.
Second is the exemption of ultra-Orthodox Haredi citizens from military service at a time when Israel needs soldiers.
Third is the state of chaos that has descended on the West Bank as a result of the “terrorism” carried out by Jewish settlers, which is undermining Israel’s international standing.
Fourth, Benjamin Netanyahu and the far-right religious camp have helped propel to the forefront of the candidates a figure with experience in managing the ongoing war: Gadi Eisenkot. He has succeeded in winning the support of a broad segment of public opinion that wants an end to the war in which Israel is embroiled.
The Palestinian elections ended before they even began. As a result, the agenda surrounding Palestinian self-determination, and with it the fate of the region, will remain unchanged. The difficulties surrounding the question of who represents the Palestinians in negotiations over Gaza will only grow.
Behind this lies the “Board of Peace,” headed by President Trump, which is tasked with disarming Hamas and unifying Gaza and the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority is based; rebuilding Gaza along with the West Bank; and dealing with Israel at a time when the Palestinian “factions” have accepted the two-state solution, in a phase in which the emergence of an effective Israeli government willing to negotiate cannot be ruled out.
Amid a flurry of negotiations in a region where warfare has drawn in both states and militias, the absence of legitimate Palestinian representation embodied in the Palestine Liberation Organization, or an organization to which some semblance of legitimacy can be conferred, means that the “central issue” will remain hostage to paralysis in the Jewish “question,” where Jewish fundamentalism is intensifying just as Hamas has remained captive to the fundamentalism of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Can there be anything stranger, then, than three elections that are supposed to set matters right and confer legitimate authority to make decisions, and above all, to provide a path toward peace rather than add more fuel to the fires already raging?
