The Pirate Party of Israel is back on the ballot!
Israel is a very contentious country, featuring a vast range of political ideologies. The Likud party under Netanyahu has held onto power for much of the past decade, during which time the country´s citizens, institutions and image have suffered tremendously. The country has a very fragmented multi-party political system, and fringe parties routinely catch on public sentiment and win seats in Knesset (Israeli parliament). The country went through five national elections in just over three years, from April 2019 to November 2022. A list must receive at least 3.25% of votes to get into parliament, making the threshold a formidable barrier for smaller parties.
The Pirate Party of Israel (PPIL) hopes to improve the situation and bring new ideas and ideologies into the public sphere and political discourse. On Sept. 7, their list was accepted for the national election. This is their 8th time since 2013. They campaign on issues of government transparency, freedom of speech, privacy and individual rights, as well as new political ideas and imagination about how democracy can work. The party works on transparency with hundreds of volunteer observers at polling stations, ensuring representatives follow the process until the last vote is counted.
This year the party has an esteemed new member. Prof. Dan Ariely, the behavioral economist, has now joined the Pirate Party of Israel and handed the elections committee the necessary papers to register as a candidate for Israel’s 2026 election. The news broke in surprising fashion when Prof. Ariely himself arrived with other PPIL representatives at the Knesset to submit the list of candidates.
Prof. Ariely is also a bestselling author whose books include Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty.
With a feeling of optimism, the Israeli party has submitted a list of 25 candidates. Also participating at the top of the list are longtime Pirate participants Dr. Ohad Shem-Tov and Noam Kuzar. Israel goes to the polls on October 27, 2026. The 3.25% threshold has so far eluded the party.
Pirate Party of Israel 2026 Election Campaign
For a political movement accustomed to being treated as a marginal party, the addition of Prof. Ariely has already prompted new discussions and greater awareness of Pirate ideas and ideology. Ariely has approached these elections as something of a political experiment, declaring that “politics is fun”, and describing the Pirate Party as a natural destination for people without a political home, an alternative for people who feel the existing system does not represent or work for them.
The Israeli Pirate Party was founded in 2012 and first contested a national election in 2013. Its broader program includes government transparency, freedom of speech, privacy and individual rights, changes to intellectual-property law, free high-speed internet as a democratic right, environmental protection, and greater public participation in government. Their platform attempts to spin the question of “Who should govern Israel?” to “How should Israelis govern themselves?”.
The party has already built an online system into its website called “The Deck”, which is based on LiquidFeedback and liquid democracy, combining direct and delegative voting. Members can vote directly on decisions or delegate their vote on a particular issue to someone they trust. That delegation can later be withdrawn. Discussions and decisions remain visible, with digital tools allowing participation between elections rather than limiting citizen influence to a ballot every few years.
Pirate Party of Israel Platform
A large number of media outlets have already picked up the story in Israel:
https://www.ynet.co.il/news/elections2026/article/rj4yfhnoze
https://www.israelhayom.co.il/news/politics/article/21373833
https://www.jpost.com/israel-election-2026/article-907879
See all media coverage collected by the Pirate Party of Israel
We hope to share further good news, as well as interviews and media in English, about their election campaign soon.