Israel's elections seen by its neighbours

Victor Jardin - 27/10/2026.

From Egypt to Syria, four of Israel's neighbours are watching the 27 October election with the same expectation, and the same lack of illusion. The first two signed peace treaties and no longer talk to Israel's leaders. The other two live under a partial occupation that threatens their internal stability. All of them fear continuity more than any particular result.

"It doesn't matter who wins." The words are Walid Joumblatt's, the Lebanese Druze leader, a few days before the vote (The National). They capture a mood shared in Cairo, Amman, Beirut and Damascus. In the Egyptian and Jordanian media, the refrain is "anyone but Netanyahu", without anyone expecting the opposition to settle the Palestinian question (INSS).

This scepticism is not indifference. The region's calendars are suspended on the Israeli vote. Paris has postponed until after the election its conference in support of the Lebanese army, saying it would be "useless" to hold it before (L'Orient Today). And according to Middle East Eye, the reconstruction of eastern Rafah is also waiting for the outcome of the vote.

Accord de camp David en 1978 scellant la paix entre l'Égypte et Israël sous l'égide américaine. Wikimedia Commons

Egypt and Jordan : a frozen peace

Egypt in 1979, Jordan in 1994: the first two Arab states to make peace with Israel no longer have an ambassador in place there. Amman recalled its envoy in November 2023 and ended his mission in July 2026 (IsraelValley). Cairo has appointed no one to Tel Aviv and has left unanswered, since April 2024, the request for approval of Israel's ambassador (Ynet). Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has had no known meeting or official call with Netanyahu since the war began. King Abdullah has repeatedly refused to receive him, so as not to hand him a diplomatic win (Times of Israel).

The treaties hold because the dependencies hold. For Jordan, one of the most water-poor countries in the world, it is water. The 1994 treaty guarantees it around 50 million cubic metres a year. The 2021 deal that doubled that volume expired at the end of 2025 without renewal (Fanack Water). For Egypt, it is gas: a $35 billion contract runs until 2040 (Times of Israel). Cairo calls it "purely commercial". But when Israel shut its gas platforms at the start of the war on Iran, on 28 February, the halt lasted 32 days (Anadolu), and Egypt had to close its shops at 9 p.m. (Al-Monitor). Depending on a neighbour at war means depending on its wars.

What both capitals fear comes down to one word: displacement. For Cairo, the aim is to prevent Gaza from being emptied into the Sinai. For Amman, it is the annexation of the West Bank, which is advancing through land law. On 8 February, Israel's security cabinet scrapped a 1953 Jordanian law that reserved land purchases for residents: settlers can now buy directly (Peace Now). On 22 September, at the UN, King Abdullah denounced the Israeli government's "expansionist appetite", "now a regional threat", and called for sanctions (official speech).

Lebanon : a truce without withdrawal and a disarmament that divides

In Lebanon, the recent story is often told from the wrong starting point. Between the November 2024 ceasefire and February 2026, Israel struck almost daily and kept five positions in the south: around 400 dead and more than 10,000 airspace violations, according to UNIFIL records cited by its former spokesman Andrea Tenenti (Al Jazeera). On 2 March, the day after Ayatollah Khamenei's death in US-Israeli strikes was announced, Hezbollah fired for the first time since the truce. Israel invaded the south. More than 4,300 people have been killed since March (Naharnet/AFP).

A new truce has held since April, without withdrawal. The Israeli army holds a strip up to ten kilometres deep, and some fifty villages have been razed, most of them after the ceasefire (Al Jazeera). The framework agreement signed in Washington on 26 June follows Israel's sequence: the Lebanese army disarms Hezbollah, then Israel withdraws. Washington calls itself a mediator; it is also the guarantor of an order of operations. On 20 and 22 October in Tampa, the military delegations parted without an agreement or a new date (New Arab).

This is where the occupation becomes a domestic issue. 58% of Lebanese support disarming Hezbollah, but 88% of Shia oppose it (Information International, via Algemeiner). The occupation strengthens both camps: one sees it as proof that the weapons must be kept, the other as the reason to give them up. The parliamentary elections due in May have been pushed back to 2028 (Wikipedia). Joumblatt no longer believes in the American route, "the path of Marco Rubio, which will lead us to nowhere". On the Israeli army, he is categorical: "They will never leave."

Bombardement israélien au Sud Liban, source : Le Devoir.

Syria : negotiating with the one who digs

In Syria, the mechanism is different. Since Assad's fall in December 2024, Israel has occupied the Syrian side of Mount Hermon and the Golan buffer zone. There it is digging a military line called Sufa 53: an eight-metre road, trenches, earth berms and observation posts, on Syrian soil (New Arab). The Syrian Network for Human Rights has recorded at least 453 ground incursions and 69 deaths since December 2024 (Enab Baladi). Yet Ahmed al-Sharaa says the two countries had reached "almost 90%" agreement on a security pact before Israel pulled back (Jerusalem Post).

The most direct threat, however, comes from Sweida. Since the violence of July 2025 between Bedouin tribes and Druze, whose victims were mostly Druze, part of the province has rejected Damascus. Israel backs the "National Guard" linked to Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, and Damascus has built up its forces to some 3,000 troops on that front (The National). On 25 October, an Israeli security source warned that Israel "will not accept" attacks on its Druze allies, amid stepped-up military flights over Daraa and Sweida (Jerusalem Post).

One new development deserves attention: Washington and Israel are no longer playing the same tune. US envoy Tom Barrack took aim at "a particular Druze sheikh", a transparent reference to al-Hijri. "Israel backing al-Hijri does not equal American backing," says analyst Navvar Saban. His colleague Nanar Hawach goes further: "Israel appears to prefer a Damascus that is too weak to assert itself in the south" (Al Jazeera). In Lebanon, US pressure bears on Beirut; in Syria, it also bears on Israel.

What the candidates promise

Gadi Eisenkot promises to repair relations with Cairo and Amman, but remains "absolutely opposed" to a Palestinian state in the medium term (Jerusalem Post). In Lebanon and Syria alike, he and Netanyahu want to keep a security zone. The former army chief draws a red line at eight kilometres and would give France a role again (Jerusalem Post). Naftali Bennett wonders whether al-Sharaa is "a wolf in sheep's clothing" (Jerusalem Post). Avigdor Lieberman proposes handing Jordan the management of part of the West Bank, exactly what Amman rejects (Ynet). A change of government would change the tone, not the map.

Le président syrien Al Charaa et son ministre des affaires étrangères discutent avec Tom Barrack, envoyé américain pour la Syrie en mai 2025. Wikimedia Commons.

Societies are hostile to Israel, not to diplomacy

In Jordan, 95% of citizens have an unfavourable view of Israel and 67% reject normalisation, even in exchange for a Palestinian state (Arab Barometer). In Lebanon, 87% see Israel as an enemy, but 54% believe only diplomacy will free the south (Lebanese American University). In Egypt, only state-organised protests are tolerated (MERIP). In Syria, people were protesting on 23 October, from Daraa to Raqqa, against the incursions. Everywhere, regimes harden their tone to contain their streets, without breaking ties.

Continuity as a threat

What Israel's neighbours fear from 27 October is not a name: it is that nothing changes. For on the ground, nothing stands still. The West Bank land registry is opening up to settlers, Sufa 53 is advancing through the Quneitra countryside, and villages in south Lebanon are being razed behind the yellow line. Israel did not create the Lebanese divide over Hezbollah's weapons, nor Sweida's distrust of Damascus. But the occupation deepens them. In the north, the danger is not only war with Israel. It is war from within.

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