August 21 marked 6,900 cumulative days in office for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. No one in the history of the State of Israel has served as prime minister for so long.

To find a parallel in Jewish history, one must go back thousands of years, to the era of Jewish kings: the last Jewish ruler to remain in power longer than Netanyahu appears to have been Herod Agrippa II, the last of the Herodian rulers, who helped the Romans suppress the Great Jewish Revolt.

Ahead of the October 27, 2026 elections for the 26th Knesset, Shakuf approached the opposition parties to ask whether they would commit to advancing legislation limiting the prime minister’s tenure. Every party and representative that responded expressed support for a limit of two terms or eight years.

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Lord Acton wrote in 1887. In Israel, nearly 140 years later, there is still no limit on the time anyone may serve in the country’s most powerful political office.

As Netanyahu’s terms in office have lengthened, so, too, has his drive to accumulate power and erode the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances in Israeli democracy. Netanyahu’s sixth government took this trend to its peak. It is headed by a prime minister facing criminal charges.

Its minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is a Kahanist - a follower of Meir Kahane, an ultranationalist ideologue convicted of domestic terrorism in the United States - and a serial offender whose public career has been built on contempt for the rule of law.

Netanyahu also sought to appoint Aryeh Deri, who has been convicted twice - of bribery and tax fraud - as a minister. After the High Court of Justice disqualified the appointment, Netanyahu’s coalition advanced legislation intended to pave Deri’s way back into government.

In the Knesset, too, elected officials involved in criminal proceedings continue to hold key positions. Economic Affairs Committee chair David Bitan is on trial on charges of bribery, fraud, breach of trust, and money laundering.

Finance Committee chair Hanoch Milwidsky was questioned under caution on suspicion of rape, indecent acts and witness tampering. Police believe they have gathered sufficient evidence to prosecute Minister May Golan on corruption charges.

In June 2026, the Knesset granted MK Tali Gottlieb immunity from prosecution following her indictment for disclosing and publishing classified information. Until a court finds them guilty, all these elected officials are presumed innocent.

This is a Sodom-and-Gomorrah government, unparalleled in the history of modern Israel.

Even if he loses the next election, Netanyahu will finish his current term with nearly 19 cumulative years in power. Such an extended tenure illustrates the significance of having no legal limit on the time a person may serve in the country’s most powerful political office.

From a Two-Term Limit to “No Indicted Officials in Government”

All the opposition parties and representatives that responded to Shakuf’s inquiry - parties that current polls suggest could form Israel’s next government - said they support limiting the prime minister’s tenure. They do not, however, agree on an identical mechanism: some propose two terms, others eight years, and some support both alternatives.

The Yashar! ("Straight") party, led by Gadi Eisenkot and currently leading the opposition in the polls, includes this pledge as the seventh item in its ten-point plan: “The prime minister’s tenure will be limited to two terms.” During the 25th Knesset, Eisenkot introduced an eight-year term-limit bill, but it was voted down by the Netanyahu-led coalition.

The Beyahad (“Together”) joint list, led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, has also pledged to limit the prime minister’s tenure. In September 2025, before the slate was formed, Bennett pledged to promote a limit of two terms or eight years and to make it a condition for joining a coalition.

The pledge was never put to the test, however, because Bennett did not subsequently join a governing coalition.

The Democrats also committed to additional measures in their response to Shakuf: “We will be at the forefront of the fight against corruption and the defense of the rule of law. We will amend Basic Law: The Government to limit the prime minister’s tenure to eight years. We will establish clear provisions on incapacity and enshrine in law a ‘No One Under Indictment in Government’ rule, barring a prime minister, ministers and deputy ministers from serving while under indictment,” said the party, which is headed by Yair Golan.

Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel Is Our Home”), a right-wing party led by Avigdor Lieberman, said that a limit on the prime minister’s tenure is included in its platform. Lieberman has championed the issue for nearly two decades, but none of the term-limit bills he has backed has ever become law - including during his time in the short-lived Government of Change, the broad coalition that replaced Netanyahu and governed from 2021 to 2022.

In that same government, Mansour Abbas and the other members of Ra’am (United Arab List) pledged to enact such legislation and supported it when it was brought to a vote in the Knesset plenary. Hadash - a left-wing Arab-Jewish alliance - said that it had supported previous proposals and continues to support advancing the law.

MK Hili Tropper, a founder of the Bayit Tzioni–Miluimnikim (“Zionist Home – The Reservists”) slate, said that if the slate enters the Knesset, it will support legislation limiting the prime minister’s tenure. Together with Eisenkot, Tropper was also among the signatories to the bill introduced during the 25th Knesset.

The First Proposal - and Israel’s Only Term-Limit Law

“Government requires frequent turnover, particularly at the highest level, lest it become corrupt. It is therefore proposed that the prime minister’s tenure be limited to two terms,” MK Uri Avnery wrote in 1972 in the explanatory notes to a bill he submitted. His proposal was probably the first bill seeking to limit the prime minister’s tenure. It was debated in the Knesset plenary in 1973, but went no further.

About 20 years after Avnery’s proposal, a limit on the prime minister’s tenure was enshrined in legislation for the first time. Basic-Law: The Government, approved on March 18, 1992, introduced direct elections for prime minister and stipulated in Section 8(b) that anyone who had served in office for seven consecutive years could not run in the next election for prime minister.

This was not an absolute cap on tenure, but a cooling-off period of one election cycle, after which the former prime minister could run again. The arrangement took effect in 1996. In 2001, the Knesset decided to abolish the direct-election system, and the provision expired when the new Basic-Law: The Government came into force in 2003.

The Knesset explicitly stipulated that the law would not apply to the 1992 elections for the 13th Knesset, but only from the elections for the 14th Knesset onward. In practice, it took effect on June 18, 1996, when Benjamin Netanyahu assumed office - the first prime minister to be elected directly and to be subject to the seven-consecutive-year limit.

Ariel Sharon was the last prime minister to be elected directly. Soon after his election in early 2001, he supported repealing the law, thereby abolishing the seven-year limit it contained as well.

After the limit was repealed, Avigdor Lieberman began advocating term limits in 2006 as part of a proposal to transition to a presidential system. His proposal called for a presidential system in which the president would replace the prime minister as head of the executive branch and be limited to two terms, as in the United States.

In 2013, MK Merav Michaeli introduced a bill limiting the prime minister to two terms. During the 20th Knesset, she submitted the proposal again and secured the support of opposition faction leaders, including Lieberman. After joining Netanyahu’s government in 2016, Lieberman withdrew his support.

In 2018, a similar proposal introduced by Yair Lapid was rejected in a preliminary reading. Lieberman resumed promoting the issue in 2020.

The most advanced attempt took place during the 24th Knesset. The then justice minister, Gideon Sa’ar, now foreign minister, advanced a government bill limiting the prime minister’s tenure to eight years.

The bill passed its first reading and stipulated that separate periods in office would be counted as one continuous term if fewer than three years had elapsed between them. The mechanism drew criticism because it would have allowed a prime minister to return to office after a longer hiatus, but the Knesset was dissolved before the legislative process could be completed.

Additional bills were introduced during the 25th Knesset, including by Eisenkot, Sa’ar, Benny Gantz and Lieberman. None advanced under Netanyahu’s sixth government.

The current pledges will face their test after the election. If Netanyahu is elected again, it is difficult to see the law advancing under a government he leads. A different government would not guarantee action, but it would open a genuine window of opportunity.

The most likely time to pass the law would be during the first or second year of the term of the prime minister who replaces Netanyahu, while the memory of his prolonged rule remains fresh and the prospect of his return to power is still tangible. As the new term continues, the incumbent prime minister’s incentive to impose a limit on his own tenure will diminish.

If the current pledges are not translated into legislation at the very start of the next government’s term, the 2026 consensus may join the long list of proposals that never reached the finish line.

This article was originally published in Hebrew by Shakuf on August 20, 2026.

About Shakuf: Shakuf is an independent news outlet that covers the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. It is part of Independent Press, Israel’s largest independent-media group, which also includes The Seventh Eye and The Hottest Place in Hell.