Netanyahu govt has 'attacked' Israeli judicial system, Supreme Court and democratic institutions

Joining me now is Professor Ilan Greisamer, a political scientist from Bar-Ilan University in Israel. Professor, thank you very much for your time. Now, many view this election as a referendum on Netanyahu's leadership. So, in your opinion, what exactly is at stake today? Well, there are a lot of issues which are at stake today. First of all, of course, the security situation of Israel facing Iran and the possibility of renewing the attacks and a new war. That's something a lot of Israelis think about during this election, but I would say mostly internal problems. The present Netanyahu government has attacked, in fact, the judicial system, the Supreme Court, and mainly all the assets of democracy, of a democratic state, and we want to stop this revolution, in fact, which would make Israel something like like an authoritarian or non-democratic state. There is also a very important question for a lot of Israelis in the fact that part of the population, the ultra-religious population, their young men don't serve in the army. They are exempted of serving in the army, which makes all the burden of security, of defense on the rest of the population. It's exactly as if part of the population does not pay taxes when the others pay taxes. So this question of conscripting the young ultra-religious is a very important question for most Israelis. And of course, the Palestinian question. But I would say that the Palestinian conflict is not at the front. It is something which is present, which is very important for the international community. But in this election, the question of Netanyahu or not Netanyahu, of democracy or a government which hurts democracy that's the main question of this election as a former Jerusalem correspondent I know that Israel is a very divided society but with Netanyahu facing corruption trials and as you pointed out you know criticism over the security failures of October 7th not to mention the attacks on the judiciary, just how significant are accountability and public trust in determining the outcome of this election? You are right. This is mainly an election which is for or against Netanyahu. Will we let Netanyahu and his government continue to reign about Israel and, we must say, doing very bad things for the Israeli society, or as there is a coalition of the opposition, of opposition parties, will we put an end to this government and oust Netanyahu out of power in Israel. This is the question. Netanyahu or not Netanyahu? Professor, can I then ask you, what do you sense will be the outcome this evening? Do you think that Netanyahu will be able to form a coalition and return to power? Or do you think this indeed could be his exit? Well, this is a question at that time in the afternoon of the election. We cannot answer to that. According to opinion polls, the Jewish population, I speak about the Jewish population of Israel and not the 20% of non-Jewish, the Jewish population is divided, let's say, 50-50. There is probably half of the population which is behind Netanyahu and half the population who is against. But something which works in favor of the opposition is that there is always the possibility that the Arab parties will support, maybe not being in the coalition, but will support the constitution of a government by Eisenkot, the head of the opposition. This is a possibility which doesn't exist for the government, which is totally right or extreme right or ultra-religious or religious. They have no reserve. In fact, the opposition, which is half of the population, can maybe ask the Arab parties to support the opposition. The Arab parties in the past have not supported, most of them, the opposition parties. But this time, this evening, tomorrow, I do believe that they will want to support the Zionist parties of the opposition for a very simple reason, because this government of Netanyahu, works against the Arab population and against any solution of the Palestinian question. And also something which is very important is that there is a huge criminality in villages and towns of the Arabs in Israel, and they want to put an end to this terrible, terrible situation of crime and killing Professor Grazama, I'm terribly sorry we've run out of time we're going to have to leave it there, thank you so much Okay, with pleasure let's hope for a good result Professor Grazama there from Bar-Ilan University in Israel