Exactly one week from now, October 31, 2023, was supposed to be the day of municipal elections in cities across Israel.

The war that began with the brutal Hamas massacre of October 7 put a wrinkle in that. With a war ongoing it would be difficult to hold elections. The Knesset has been discussing delaying the elections. 

I see several issues making holding elections now difficult, such as public safety, campaigns that have been cut short, large swaths of the population that are unavailable to vote (people called up to the Reserves and are on the front lines or wherever they might be), towns down south that need reorganization, candidates and incumbents that maybe have been killed or injured in the initial massacre, etc.

To that end, today the Knesset approved the law delaying municipal elections. The law passed schedules the new elections with a 3 month delay, for the date of January 30 2024. Additionally, the law allows the government to approve, without having to pass a new law, an additional delay of another month if it deems this necessary. Meaning, if the war is still going on and the situation at the end of January doesn't allow for elections to be held, they can delay for another month and hold the elections on February 27, 2024.

source: Maariv

I honestly think 3 months or four months wont be enough and we will need another delay. I think they should have postponed it by 6 months or even a year.

The way the government is talking, they expect the war to last a few months or even longer. If they are telling anything remotely similar to the truth and to real expectations, we wont be able to hold elections in either January or February. And even if things quiet down by then, the candidates will need time to campaign and as mentioned, in many towns, especially down south and possibly up north by then, they will need to reorganize with time for new candidates to step forward and do everything necessary including campaigning and whatnot.

Unless of course a 3 month delay is indicative that the government actually expects this to be short, despite what they are saying publicly.