Israelis living in U.S., other countries spend thousands to fly in to vote in crucial election: “My civic duty”
With a consequential election in Israel Tuesday, tens of thousands of Israelis living abroad have flown in just to cast their ballots.
Ronnie Teram Gil-Ad left Israel for the U.S. with her family a year ago. She shelled out about $3,000 to come back to vote.
“It is my country. The fact that I’m living abroad doesn’t mean that this is not my home here. We wanna make a difference,” she said.
Gil-Ad, who will fly back to Boston Tuesday night, will have been in Israel for just 36 hours.
“This is my civic duty,” she said. And she’s not alone.
Another voter, Yael Natra, told The Associated Press she spent thousands of dollars to travel from Toronto to Tel Aviv to be in the country to cast a ballot. It’s the first time in the two decades since she left Israel for Canada that she felt she needed to vote in her home country’s elections.
“The Israel that I grew up in is disappearing,” she said in an interview from Toronto, citing an eroding democracy and deeply divided society. “If something won’t change this time, I don’t know what’s going to be.”
AID Coalition, a U.S.-based nonprofit whose stated mission is strengthening Israel’s democracy, estimates that as many as 67,000 Israeli citizens have arrived from abroad to vote, based on surveys of expatriates and registration data gathered for its “Fly&Vote” initiative. It says about half have been flying in from the United States, with others from Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Offir Gutelzon helped organize the flights that brought many Israelis to vote with the organization he co-founded, UnXeptable. They say their goal is to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has dominated Israeli politics for 30 years.
Many voters said they see the election — the first national election since the deadly Hamas attack and start of the war in Gaza three years ago — as a referendum on Netanyahu.
Israel has parliamentary elections. The opposition bloc, which polls show will likely have a plurality of votes, is led by Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief of staff who left Netanyahu’s government in 2024 accusing him of unnecessarily prolonging the war in Gaza and delaying a hostage deal with Hamas.
The mobilization of expats this year is notable, compared with past Israeli elections, Dahlia Scheindlin, an American-Israeli political analyst, told the AP. While many campaigns have focused on anti-Netanyahu sentiment, she said it’s unclear overall how those flying in will vote.
“There are also expats coming in to vote for the pro-Netanyahu side,” Scheindlin said.
Turnout is expected to be significant with predictions that up to 70% of Israel’s roughly 7.3 million registered voters will cast ballots.
But the hard part begins after the polls close: forming a governing coalition that is stable.
