BIBI VALUE
Top Israeli political analyst: market underrating Netanyahu, Lieberman has a real shot, and here's what could bring Israel back into the Iran war
Amit Segal is the chief political analyst for Israel’s top rated Channel 12 news outlet, and a columnist for Israel Hayom. In English, he writes It’s Noon in Israel on Substack. The Oracle caught up with Segal to discuss why he thinks the October 27 Israeli election is mispriced, the state of the Trump-Netanyahu relationship, dark horse coalition scenarios, and how the Iran war will end.
This interview has been edited for length. All answers are his own.
Netanyahu has dissolved parliament ahead of the October 27 election. Polymarket has Netanyahu, the ultimate political survivor, at just one-in-three to be prime minister after the election. Does that surprise you?
First, an introduction crucial for Polymarket investors.
Unlike in the US or UK, an Israeli election might end in a draw. It can also end in a rotation government, one figure serving as prime minister for two years and another for the next two. Or in an outright majority.
Here’s the thing. Netanyahu, as the incumbent, can enjoy a hung parliament. If there is no clear winner, he stays in office in what we call a transition government. So any chance of a draw adds chances for Netanyahu, the only outcome that can come of it. And if a rotation government is possible, that also increases Netanyahu’s odds, as he’s the leader of the right wing.
I look at Polymarket every day, and I’m quite surprised by Netanyahu’s low chances, and by the very low chances given to Avigdor Lieberman.
In Israel, the decision on the next prime minister is in the hands of the parliament, not the people. It is neither a beauty contest nor a popularity contest. In 2021, Naftali Bennett became prime minister with 5% of the popular vote. The lesson is that in Israel, kingmakers can become the kings themselves.
How could Lieberman become prime minister?
Eisenkot is the front-runner in the opposition, leading every poll since April or May. But Avigdor Lieberman can make his way to the prime minister’s office, because he is not a natural part of the opposition. He is a settler living in a settlement. He is not exposed to pressure from center-left news outlets. His political base is Russian immigrants. He is a maverick.
Second: he is 68, so he knows this is his last round. And third, he’s a kingmaker. He belongs to the right on diplomacy and the Palestinian question, but to the opposition on domestic issues, liberalism, the economy. So he can come to Eisenkot the day after the election and say, “I’m one of only three people in Israel ever to serve as defense minister, treasury minister, and minister of foreign affairs. Give me the chance to be prime minister first.” What can Eisenkot do? The only guy you have to convince after the election, if not the voters, is Lieberman himself.
So I think Lieberman is heavily underrated and written off. He is somewhere around 4%, 4.7% on Polymarket. I would give him something like 20%.
Also: we have two types of polls. In the mainstream media, Netanyahu is heading toward his worst defeat in 20 years, 51-52 seats for his bloc out of 120. But according to Channel 14 and Channel 24, more affiliated with the right wing, he is heading toward the best victory of his career. Statistics cannot explain that gap. Margins explain 3% or 4%, not 12% or 13%.
And I want to give you the magic number: 55. We have 10 Arab Knesset members who do not take part in coalitions: they do not sympathize with the Zionist state, and the Zionist parties do not want them. Post-October 7, there is almost no legitimacy, especially in the center, to base a coalition on non-Zionist, sometimes anti-Zionist, Arab parties. So if Netanyahu gets 55 seats, he does not lose to Eisenkot in terms of Zionist seats.
The average of the polls has Netanyahu around 52 and a half, and we know the shy voter phenomenon, the inability to really poll right-wing voters, from the US, UK, and Israel. So even trusting the mainstream polls, Netanyahu is two and a half seats short of ending this election without Eisenkot being able to form a stable coalition. That leaves two options: a new election, meaning Netanyahu stays prime minister, or a rotation government, in which Netanyahu most likely goes first.
Remember: 61 seats are enough for a victory speech, but 59 does not force you to concede. That’s what Americans fail to understand about Israeli politics. One can get away with 52, 53, 55, 57 seats. The sitting prime minister deserves a premium simply for sitting as prime minister.
So I would give Netanyahu 45%, Eisenkot 35%, and Lieberman 20%. Netanyahu is still under 50% because of some 100 consecutive very bad polls. Eisenkot is still the one with the best chances in the center-left. But Lieberman is there, and Netanyahu has a higher chance than on Polymarket now.
As we record this, the US headlines say ‘Netanyahu visits DC amid tensions with Trump’. Are they really tense? Or is this a media invention?
Tension did exist. But as a general rule, the relationship is always better than meets the eye in the press. It is based on four to seven people from the two sides of the pond: Netanyahu, Ron Dermer, Trump, Kushner, Witkoff, and maybe Susie Wiles. Seven out of seven belong to the right, while most of the media covers it from a center-left point of view. That means lack of information, and a natural bias towards saying the situation is worse.
The relationship has cooled a bit since March, for two reasons. The war was less successful than hoped, and this administration has become more closed, with decisions taken by fewer people, so it’s harder for the Israelis to penetrate. But I would not write off Netanyahu’s chances to talk Trump into something.
Big picture, what does Israel want out of Iran? Did they already achieve their goals with getting rid of Khamenei?
No, not at all. There is no shortage of lunatic fundamentalist leaders in Iran. There are two goals.
The deliberate one is the nuke. Specifically, the 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%. Israel and the US destroyed the nuclear facilities, but as long as Iran holds this uranium in underground bunkers, it has the theoretical option to relaunch nuclear production in a way Israel is not aware of, or unable to respond to. So extracting the enriched uranium, one way or the other, is the spoken goal of the war.
And if the Iranian regime collapses, the next regime is necessarily way friendlier. That’s the unspoken goal, because it’s way more difficult to extract regimes than to extract enriched uranium.
Odds that Iran agrees to end enrichment or surrender their existing stockpiles are way down.
To be honest, I wouldn’t give it even 1%. Unlike North Korea, for the Iranian regime the nuclear program is not only a means to ensure survival. It’s almost a religious principle. Iran is not only a country, but an idea: to spread the Islamic revolution, first within Iran, then the Middle East, then the world. Giving it up in return for lifting sanctions would mean the formative idea behind the revolution is dead. They’ll word it in different ways, but they’ll never agree to stop. Unless there is a regime change, of course.
So how does it end?
For Trump, there are three options. One is extracting the uranium with boots on the ground. Second, an agreement. And third, regime change.
Israel does not believe in an agreement, because we know our customers. Once Iran has the first Muslim nuclear bomb, it is no longer vulnerable. It is on the world stage. So for Israel there are only two options. The failure of the Epic Fury operation came from Israel wanting to extract the enriched uranium, whereas Trump said, “Let’s wait, we can reach an agreement that will give us the uranium. Why bother?”
In my mind, a ground operation to seize the uranium is a 1%, crazy idea. How likely do you put it?
It was on the table at the start. There are no big secrets: we all know where the uranium is, and we know the abilities of the US and Israel. Former defense minister Yoav Gallant, himself a former commando commander, said that while it was possible three, four months ago, he is not sure it still is, because the Iranians have prepared many obstacles on the ground.
I still think it’s feasible. The main obstacle is psychological, for the Republican Party and this very Republican president. Sending American combatants to Iranian soil is boots on the ground, even if temporary, even if a few hundred people rather than hundreds of thousands like in Iraq. For a president whose raison d’être in 2015 was to be the first Republican ever to speak out loud against the Iraq War, it was too much. The obstacles are more political than military.
Does the war just continue in phases, fight, pause, fight, pause, until something happens with the uranium?
We keep talking about it in a binary way: war or no war. We should adjust to the idea that it’s going to be non-binary, something in between.
And there is something else: the Iranian economy. The assessment in Israel three months ago was that without an agreement, the regime collapses by the end of 2026. At the end of 2025, millions of protesters stormed the streets of Tehran, Qom, and Bushehr over a devastating economic situation. It has only worsened since. The damage from the Epic Fury operation alone is estimated around $400 billion.
One might say the barrier of fear went up after the massacre of some 7,000 to 32,000 protesters. But fear and having nothing to lose are competing in Iran as we speak. Say the one-month MOU postponed the collapse to January 31, 2027. Watch the streets of Tehran closely.
For Israel, no war, no deal is the perfect solution: no casualties, international flights, and the regime slowly fading away. But Israel is not an actor in world energy prices. President Trump is, and for him that means fights over the Strait of Hormuz.
So you’re more bullish than the market on regime change. What’s your number by the end of the year?
I would give it 30%. There are two options: top-down or bottom-up. We have the image of the velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe, but even the Islamic Revolution in 1979 began with mass protests and ended with a faction of fundamentalists taking the regime. We now know that Israel and the US work simultaneously top-down, with former President Ahmadinejad, and bottom-up through propaganda warfare. The main idea is that protests would lead parts of the regime to acknowledge the gloomy reality and come to terms with the United States.
Israel is not being targeted and not shooting in this round of fighting. What could pull Israel back in?
Three options. One, an Israeli-American decision to attack Iran’s energy facilities. Two, the same decision on the uranium. Three, the regime feeling its end is near and seeking legitimacy by attacking the Zionists. The first two are more probable than the third.
Polymarket recently listed markets on Qeshm, Hormuz, and Kharg islands. Will Iran keep control over Hormuz, regardless of what happens with the regime?
No matter which regime is in Iran, the Strait of Hormuz is going to be international. The world has seen the effects of taking over a relatively small strait, and no one is going to let it happen again. This is the conclusion of every US ally in the region, mainly the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and of course Qatar, whose economies took amazing damage.
Two processes are coming. One is alternative routes, be it Jordan-Israel-Mediterranean, Syria-Turkey-Mediterranean, or Syria-Turkey-Europe. And second, even a new regime in Iran will go through what Venezuela went through: you can keep your sovereignty, but your oil is controlled by us.
Could a naval operation unblock Hormuz?
I think it is considered. I’m not an expert here, but I keep hearing rumors about it. Such an operation would not include Israel, which has no interests in the Strait of Hormuz, unlike the uranium question. It could happen even without any Israeli knowledge.
Follow Amit Segal on X and on his Substack, It’s Noon in Israel.
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