Nearly half of Israel’s parties have no platform

Likud has not published a platform for the October 27 election. There’s no platform on the current party website, on the older Likud movement site, or on Benjamin Netanyahu’s political site. The last full Likud platform I could find is from 2009, and the party doesn’t even host it. The Israel Democracy Institute does. What Likud has put out instead is the subject of its episode, out October 19.

I found this out after spending countless hours researching each party.

Since October 1, I’ve been working through all 38 lists on the ballot for a series called Close Read, one episode per list, in English. The rule is simple: if a party published it, it counts, and if it didn’t, it doesn’t. That means platforms, websites, official accounts, and on-the-record interviews by party leaders, labeled as interviews. No pundits, no polls, no coalition math. Every list gets the same 13 topics in the same order, and when a party has nothing on a topic, I say so.

I thought the hard part would be translation. The hard part has been looking for documents that don’t exist.

Nearly half the ballot has no platform

Likud has company. Shas hasn’t published a platform I could find. It has a slogan, “I have chosen the way of faith,” and a stream of campaign posts. United Torah Judaism has no website at all, and the newest UTJ platform in the IDI archive is from 1999. Otzma Yehudit put out three targeted plans and no full platform. Noam has three short blocks of text on its home page. Ra’am released its first campaign brochure on October 10, 17 days before the vote. Add the rest of the parties, and by my count close to half of the 38 have no full platform written for this election.

Other parties wrote a lot. The Democrats posted a 16-page work plan on August 11. HaKahal has a 16-page booklet. Yashar released its “10 steps” as an eight-page PDF in June. B’Yachad has about 30 separate plan pages and a 34-page education document. Yisrael Beiteinu has a platform in Hebrew, another in Russian, a seniors platform, a program for new immigrants, and an education platform drafted with the national student council.

A long PDF doesn’t make a party right, and I don’t grade anyone. What it changes is what you can hold a party to. A promise in a dated platform is on the record. A position spread across Telegram posts and TV interviews can change by the next interview, and there’s no document to retract.

One ballot slip, two platforms

Several lists are two parties running as one, and the merger often stops at the ballot slip. Religious Zionism and Zehut announced a technical joint run on September 1. There is no joint platform, joint website or joint document. Zehut has a full 2026 platform. Religious Zionism has three targeted plans. In their joint video, Smotrich described what each party keeps:

His identity, his path and his worldview.

The Reservists and the Economic Party have the same shape. The list’s own landing page, created September 10, has a slogan and a sign-up form. Each component party has a detailed platform on its own site. Vote for one of these lists and you’re voting for two documents that were never reconciled.

The platform moves while you read it

A PDF has a date on it. A web page can change overnight, and during this campaign they do.

On September 30, the Joint List’s economic plan promised free education from age 0. On October 11, the Hebrew and Arabic said from age 3, while the English still said age 0. When I checked again on October 13, the Hebrew and Arabic were back to age 0 and had added public day care. The same October 13 revision added a minimum wage figure, at least 56 shekels an hour, that until then had appeared only on the English page.

Some positions show up on pages you’d never find from the menu. For weeks, Noam’s website said nothing about Haredi military service. On October 8 it posted a page addressed to Chabad voters, not linked from the site’s navigation, saying the party opposes the forced conscription of yeshiva students. Religious Zionism’s judicial plan was a dead link on its own site at the end of September. It’s now a full page, retitled the Rothman plan.

Three minutes of nothing

For some lists, the honest episode is three minutes long. Women’s Voice has a name, ballot letters and 15 candidates on file with the Central Elections Committee, and I couldn’t find anything this year’s slate has published. Just Law‘s website domain no longer resolves. There are a few more like them.

The Color Black has issued one formal statement, about a single issue. The party that filed the list was registered for a different purpose entirely, and that story is in its episode, out October 19.

Others are running on old paper. Shema‘s website still carries a platform written for the 2020 to 2022 campaigns, and one of its English pages, titled “Manifesto 2025,” still promises to adopt Likud’s 2020 budget. Betach’s last platform is from April 2019.

Three questions before you vote

Whichever list you’re leaning toward, ask:

• Has it published a platform written for this election, or are you piecing its positions together from posts and interviews?
• When was it written, and has it changed since you last looked? Some lists are still running on documents from 2019 and 2022, and some rewrite their pages every few days.
• If you read it in English, does the Hebrew say the same thing?

I answered all three for each of the 38 lists. Every episode lays out what one list has put in writing, with the original Hebrew or Arabic on screen beside the translation and a saved copy of every source, so a page that changes later can still be checked against what it said. Before recording, I checked about 1,500 claims against those saved copies. More than half of the 38 episodes are out. Likud’s comes out in just a few more days, followed by Religious Zionism-Zehut, the Joint List, and Noam.

Find your list at closeread.show and read what it published before you vote.