Al Jazeera wrote on 14 November that the opposition is trying to remove Benjamin Netanyahu, and the question is what remains of ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. The piece, by Simon Speakman Cordall, presents Ben-Gvir as the national security minister convicted of inciting terrorism, and Smotrich as the finance minister and a backer of the settlements. Both have publicly opposed a government led by former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot.

Al-Monitor, after the 27 October vote, writes that the two far-right parties kept 13 seats between them, the same number as before. Netanyahu’s bloc, which includes them, has 53 seats, short of the 61 required. Eisenkot’s opposition has 48. The Arab parties have 19. The far right risks watching the coalition talks from outside government.

Before the vote, Ben-Gvir said Netanyahu had to choose between himself, “to save Israel”, and Eisenkot. Smotrich warned his ultra-Orthodox allies not to negotiate with Eisenkot: he would dump them after using their votes to remove Netanyahu.

In 2022 Netanyahu gave Smotrich the finance ministry and a role in the defence ministry, with powers over the Israeli civilian administration in the West Bank. From there he set up a settlement administration and, in August 2025, revived the E1 plan, saying it would bury “the idea of a Palestinian state”. Ben-Gvir was given national security. Al Jazeera writes that he is accused of politicising the police and of tightening conditions for Palestinian prisoners.

In June 2025 Ireland and the Netherlands banned the two ministers from travel, and other states froze their assets. Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the measures answered their desire “to see the elimination of Palestinians from Palestine”. In September 2025 Ben-Gvir threatened to bring down the government if Hamas still existed after the captives were released under Donald Trump’s Gaza plan. Al Jazeera writes that both have called for the annexation and settlement of Gaza.

Arie Perliger, of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, told Al Jazeera the two should not be treated as one bloc. Ben-Gvir’s power is populist, and opposition suits him. Smotrich’s gains were bureaucratic: budgets, portfolios, control of settlement policy. Perliger added that changing the personnel, the procedures and the facts on the ground takes sustained political will, and he doubts an opposition government would do it.

Roi Zur, of the University of Essex, told Al Jazeera the religious Zionist movement dates from 1967 and, with Otzma Yehudit, has about 10 percent of the electorate. “They are stable and will be there for many years.” Former Hadash lawmaker Aida Touma-Suleiman said people are afraid to speak Arabic in the street, and that Netanyahu and his allies have made racism “almost proof of patriotism”.

Image: Wikimedia Commons — the Knesset building in Jerusalem, 5 July 2018 (Gary Todd, CC0). The photo is not from the 2026 election and does not show the ministers.

Sources consulted: Netanyahu may fall, but the far-right legacy is going nowhere — Al Jazeera; Far-right supporters hold out hope of a return to power — Al-Monitor.