Israel

Netanyahu and Herzog's absence made them the biggest losers of all, leaving the stage open for smaller parties.

Zionist Union leader says he skipped Thursday’s TV discussion with 8 other party leaders because ‘elections are about unseating PM’.

The debate format pitted individual candidates against one another, debating the issues that divide them most.

Economic issues dominate as front-runners Netanyahu and Herzog, Iran’s nuclear program notably absent.

Until a few years ago, there was no Hebrew word for debate. Then in 2012, linguists adopted the term “mamat,” whose root means “confrontation,” which Yoni Cohen-Idov, an international debating champion, sees as symptomatic of what ails his nation’s political discourse.