The punditocracy is suffering from a collective delusion about Israeli politics.
For months, mainstream analysis has chanted the same tired mantra: Benjamin Netanyahu’s reliance on ultra-Orthodox and religious Zionist parties is a ticking political time bomb. The narrative claims these alliances alienate moderate voters, destabilize the state, and guarantee his eventual electoral ruin.
It is a comforting bedtime story for center-left analysts. It is also completely wrong.
What the conventional commentary misinterprets as a liability is actually Netanyahu’s greatest structural advantage. In the brutal, fractured arena of Israeli parliamentary politics, a coalition with religious parties isn't a vulnerability. It is the only reliable glue available. Far from risking his reelection, this alliance forms an unshakeable base that guarantees his survival while his opponents fracture into a dozen ideologically incompatible pieces.
To understand why, you have to stop looking at Israel through the lens of Western-style two-party systems and start looking at the cold calculus of coalition mechanics.
The Myth of the "Moderate Middle" Strategy
Pundits love to argue that Netanyahu should pivot to the center. They suggest that by shedding figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir or Bezalel Smotrich, and cutting ties with the Haredi parties (Shas and United Torah Judaism), Netanyahu could build a "sane," stable government with secular centrists.
This argument ignores how Knesset arithmetic actually works.
I have watched political strategists burn through millions of dollars trying to manufacture an "Israeli Center" that can hold a coalition together. It fails every single time. Why? Because the Israeli centrist voter is a myth born of superficial polling. Centrist parties in Israel—whether Benny Gantz's National Unity or Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid—are not cohesive ideological movements. They are temporary parking lots for voters who are frustrated with the status quo but fiercely divided on the actual issues: Palestinian statehood, economic policy, and the separation of church and state.
If Netanyahu dumps the religious parties to court the center, he swaps a fiercely loyal, predictable voting bloc for a volatile coalition of partners who are incentivized to stab him in the back at the first opportunity to claim the prime minister's chair for themselves.
The Calculus of Absolute Loyalty
Let's break down the mechanics of the Haredi and Religious Zionist blocs.
Unlike secular political parties, whose voters shift allegiances based on economic fluctuations or temporary scandals, the religious electorate votes on existential, identity-driven imperatives. For the ultra-Orthodox, it is about securing funding for yeshivas and maintaining exemptions from military service. For the religious Zionists, it is about settlement expansion and national identity.
Netanyahu understands a transaction that secular analysts are too squeamish to admit: Religious parties do not care who the prime minister is, as long as their core sectoral interests are met.
This makes them the perfect partners for a survivor like Netanyahu. They do not harbor ambitions to replace him as prime minister because their constituencies do not demand a national leader; they demand a protector of their specific way of life. Secular partners, by contrast, are always looking to usurp the throne. By locking in the religious parties, Netanyahu secures a permanent, non-negotiable floor of roughly 30 to 32 seats in the Knesset before a single secular right-wing vote is even counted.
Dismantling the "People Also Ask" Delusions
If you look at public discourse surrounding Israeli elections, the questions being asked prove how fundamentally the public misunderstands the situation.
"Won't draft exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox destroy Netanyahu's coalition?"
The conventional wisdom says yes, pointing to massive public anger over the issue of Haredi military enlistment during times of national conflict. The secular public is furious, and the High Court of Justice continually rules against inequality in drafting.
But look at the actual incentives. Will the Haredi parties walk away from Netanyahu over this? Absolutely not. Where would they go? If they bring down the government, they risk an election that brings Lapid or Gantz to power—leaders who would enforce the draft far more aggressively and cut off their funding entirely. The religious parties have nowhere else to turn. They are trapped in Netanyahu's orbit just as much as he relies on them. The tension isn't a crack in the foundation; it is the friction that keeps the structure locked in place.
"Aren't far-right ministers destroying Israel's international standing and hurting Netanyahu at home?"
This question assumes that international approval ratings translate to domestic ballots. They don't. While the foreign press and Washington diplomats express horror at the rhetoric of Israel’s far-right ministers, that exact friction plays directly into Netanyahu’s hands domestically.
It allows him to play the role of the "responsible adult" in the room. He positions himself as the vital buffer between the radical demands of his coalition partners and the realities of global geopolitics. To the Israeli right, he says, "Only I can deliver your goals without causing a total rupture with America." To America, he says, "Hold me back, because if I fall, you get the extremists." It is a masterful leverage game.
The Cost of the Strategy (and Why It Doesn't Matter Electorally)
To be clear, this strategy comes with massive structural downsides for the State of Israel.
The economic burden of funding a growing non-working ultra-Orthodox population is a long-term fiscal disaster. The erosion of secular trust in state institutions is dangerous. The diplomatic strain on relations with Western allies is real and quantifiable.
But do not confuse a tragedy for the state with a bad political strategy for the individual running it.
Netanyahu is not solving for Israel's 2040 GDP. He is solving for 61 seats in the next election. The mistake analysts make is evaluating his coalition through the lens of statecraft rather than raw political survival. On the ledger of pure power retention, the benefits of the religious alliance vastly outweigh the long-term systemic costs.
The Math of the Next Election
When the next election arrives, the anti-Netanyahu bloc will face its usual, fatal flaw: fragmentation.
The opposition will consist of left-wing idealists, Arab parties who refuse to sit in a Zionist cabinet, secular nationalists who refuse to sit with the Arab parties, and ambitious centrists who refuse to serve under each other. They cannot form a coherent, stable 61-seat majority without triggering immense internal contradictions that implode within months.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, will walk into the room with his religious bloc completely intact, disciplined, and ready to sign a coalition agreement on day one.
Stop waiting for the religious alliance to sink Netanyahu. It is the only thing keeping him afloat, and it will likely carry him across the finish line yet again while his opponents are still arguing over who gets to speak first at the press conference.
