With only a matter of weeks until Israel heads to the ballot box, the sharpest political battleground is unfolding in the skies.
Tens of thousands of Israelis living abroad are reportedly booking flights home to vote – and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party is trying to keep at least some of them grounded.
On Wednesday, Likud filed a petition asking Israel’s Central Elections Committee to block “Fly & Vote,” a grassroots initiative helping Israeli expatriates fly home for election day. Likud accused it of being an illegal, foreign funded operation, claiming it could “severely harm the integrity of the election.”
In a country where razor-thin margins often decide the outcome of an election, these votes could play a major part in determining the country’s next leader.
Unlike most Western democracies in which citizens abroad can mail in a ballot, Israel doesn’t allow absentee voting; only diplomats and official envoys can vote from outside the country. Ordinary citizens abroad – up to 10% of the population at any given time – must return home or forfeit their right to vote.
Adi Ayash, an Israeli digital content creator who lives in Thailand, said there was never a question about returning to vote. “As someone who is very engaged and very worried by the reality of the (current) Israeli leadership, I feel that it is my duty,” he told CNN. “Not to exercise my democratic right because of flight costs or convenience feels to me like extreme hypocrisy.”
The October 27 vote will be the first national election after four turbulent years under Netanyahu’s right-wing, ultra-Orthodox coalition, a term which included mass protests of liberal Israelis against a judicial overhaul and the October 7 attack in 2023 which was followed by a three-year multi-front war. According to the latest polls, both Netanyahu’s coalition and his deeply fragmented opposition are falling short of the 61-seat majority needed to form a government. Likud fears an influx of Israeli expats could help the opposition parties in a close election.
by CNN – These Israelis want to fly home to vote. Netanyahu is trying to stop them
