SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Netanyahu and his allies have neutered the protections against election manipulation. Now they are testing the waters for election cancellation.

More signs that the elections in Israel will not be held normally. Noam Solberg, who chairs the Central Elections Committee, told a closed Hebrew University session that limited election postponement "may be justified" in an emergency:

1) To be sure, he framed it carefully. Six principles, postponement only as a "last resort," with the explicit caveat that it must not become a tool for the government to extend its term. 

2) It is the timing that is alarming. Knesset dissolution passed its preliminary reading May 20 and first reading June 2. The political system is converging on October 20-27 for the vote. The clock is already running when the postponement framework gets aired.

3) Solberg is a known ally of Netanyahu. That is why he was picked Most surveys predict a loss for Netanyahu and Likud. When you are behind, the legal architecture of delay stops being academic and starts being useful.

4) Likud has spent months attacking the committee. In March its officials leaked that they "do not recognize" the Central Elections Committee after Solberg picked a legal adviser they opposed. The playbook is identical  to Trump's post-Capitol delegitimization and Orban's refusal to accept defeat.

5) Legally this could be a tough to do. Delaying a Knesset election requires a special law passed by 80 MKs, and Basic Law: The Knesset is shielded from emergency regulations. That is a high wall. The worry is not that the law is weak. It is that the climate for testing it is being built.

6) Other moves to undermine the elections committee include the forced resignation of Orly Ades, who ran the Central Elections Committee for over 15 years and eight election cycles. In closed talks she said she feared a personal delegitimization campaign.

7) They went after the committee's legal adviser. When Yifat Siminovsky was picked as legal adviser in March 2026, Netanyahu and Likud demanded the appointment be cancelled, claiming the process was flawed. Solberg rejected the claim three separate times and ruled the tender was lawful.

8) The committee's internal comptroller, Hila Waldman, resigned amid political and social-media attacks on senior committee officials. The pattern is consistent: experienced gatekeepers leave, attacks follow them out the door.

Netanyahu and his allies have neutered the protections against election manipulation. Now they are testing the waters for election cancellation. The odds that Israel will have fair elections go down daily.