The Mitzpe Institute is a think tank working on Israeli security and the threats facing Jewish communities abroad. It's an educational programme of the Atlanta Israel Coalition. We publish the Israel Brief from Sunday to Friday, in two forms. The Flash Brief is free by email: a short scan of what moved overnight. The full Brief is for members on mitzpe.org, with our analysis of the war, Israeli politics, the region and the diaspora, and the shorter items in Briefly Noted. Each Friday this edition pulls the week together for Guerre and Shalom readers.
The Week in Israel — Israel Brief for Guerre and Shalom (3rd Edition)
Uriel Zehavi, Israel Correspondent
Friday 30 October 2026
Israel held a general election on Tuesday, on the date the law set for it, with a war still running on three fronts. It hadn't managed that since 1988. Turnout was 77.7 per cent when the polls closed, the highest in a quarter of a century, and the army says 79.9 per cent of its soldiers voted. There's no postal vote for Israelis living overseas, so the ones who wanted a say bought plane tickets. Arrivals at Ben Gurion beat departures by 67,231 in the week before the vote.
Plenty of people had their verdict ready before a single box was opened. The UN's commission of inquiry put out its latest genocide finding on Monday, the eve of the vote. Chris Sidoti, who sits on it, told a Melbourne shul this month that the commission never checked the civilian figure its genocide case leaned on. A European diplomat has promised a "tsunami of sanctions" for the morning after. And by Wednesday sources close to Trump were telling reporters that Trump wants Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich kept out of the next government. A US official denied it.
Israelis handed all of them a hung Knesset. On the final count Netanyahu's bloc has 53 seats and the Arab parties a record 19. Gadi Eisenkot, the ex-chief of staff, and his three partners have 48. Nobody's within sight of 61. Somebody will have to break a campaign promise to build a government, and the two haredi parties, down to 13 seats between them, still want a yeshiva exemption law before they'll sit in it.
Then Likud said the election had been stolen — its case for which rests on suspected Qatari money behind the Arab turnout and three men arrested in the Negev the night before the vote with cash envelopes and Ra'am ballot slips. The police said there is "no investigative or intelligence evidence to support the claims."
The Shin Bet, run by David Zini, whom Netanyahu picked for the job, has a week from the elections committee to look into the foreign money. It put out a statement saying its intelligence came from no political party, and that anybody describing the suspicions isn't speaking for it. The security question stays open, and it should, because Qatar pays Hamas's bills. But a prime minister's own appointee telling politicians to stop talking for his agency is the system doing its job.
The war, for its part, isn't waiting for coalition talks. Washington has told the Gulf to brace for a short, hard round of strikes on Iran once America's midterms are out of the way on 3 November, and yesterday the head of Central Command briefed Trump in person.
Britain is in this whether London likes it or not. On Tuesday a 24-year-old Londoner was charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service over a plot at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, where the Americans kept bombers for the Iran war, and counter-terrorism police believe the service is Iran's. The bombers have gone home. Iran's hand is now on a British charge sheet.
Herzog gets the official results on Wednesday, and Israel will be building its next government while Washington makes up its mind on Iran. We'll see which gets there first.
You Should Know
JTA: Nuseir Yassin, the Israeli Arab behind Nas Daily, told a Denver conference that antizionism is a form of antisemitism, and that he's no fan of the Israeli government.
Globes: The next American aid deal is stuck on technology: Washington wants Israeli defence know-how moved to the US, patents included, and Israel is refusing.
Jerusalem Post: The inside story of the al-Ahli hospital night, when drone footage of the car park put the dead at about 50, against the 500 Hamas announced.
CBC: A CBC investigation found about a dozen gun-for-hire shootings in Toronto, at synagogues, a school, and businesses, that look to have been financed by Iran.
The JC: Israel asked London not to recognise a Palestinian state while the hostage talks were running. Starmer did it anyway, with 48 hostages still in Gaza.
JTA: The Chofetz Chaim's yeshiva in Radun, Belarus, spent decades as a theatre with red seats. Now it's teaching students again, the first time since the Second World War.
Ynet: Turnout in Majdal Shams (Golan Heights) went from 23.4 per cent in 2022 to 40.2, and Buq'ata's nearly doubled too, with Yisrael Beytenu first in both.
Israeli Politics
The final count moved a single seat, from Shas to Likud, and turnout ended at 77.9 per cent.
Shas fell from 11 seats to six, and its own officials blame the party's line on the haredi draft.
United Torah Judaism is weighing propping up an Eisenkot minority government from outside it, and its chairman says there have been no talks at all.
Liberman won't sit with Netanyahu, the haredi parties, or Tibi, and wants a state commission of inquiry and a universal draft law first.
About 200 haredi protesters shut Route 4 near Bnei Brak over a draft evader's arrest, and police cleared them with stun grenades.
The Diaspora
The Board of Deputies voted 118 to one to call the Green Party racist over its "Zionism is racism" motion.
The BBC paid Lucie Kon £400,000, the Oscar-winning Jewish producer, and admitted no liability. It turned down her request for an apology.
Britain's prosecutors now flag antisemitic crimes separately, so for the first time somebody can count the charges.
Mohamed Soliman pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes for the Boulder firebombing, and admitted he acted over his victims' Jewish religion and Israeli national origin.
Australia's antisemitism envoy wants visa applicants screened for antisemitic views, and an outside ombudsman for the ABC and SBS.
Uriel Zehavi is Managing Director of the Mitzpe Institute, which publishes the Israel Brief from Sunday to Friday. Read it at israelbrief.com.
Previous editions of The Week in Israel can be found here.
Also on Guerre and Shalom today:
The UN is no Federation of Planets
In memory of Sir Patrick Stewart (1940 - 2026). A legendary actor. A character who understand the true meaning of peace.