Israel election live: polls open in most consequential vote in country’s history

Most polling shows prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition will lose its majority, with Gadi Eisenkot the leading opposition contender

• What you need to know about Israel’s election

Four decades ago, when the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane won a single seat in Israel’s Knesset, other legislators passed a law to prevent him running again, left the chamber when he rose to speak and worked together to block discussion of his ethnonationalist proposals.

These ranged from mass expulsions of Palestinians to apartheid provisions such as segregated beaches and the criminalisation of sex between Jews and gentiles.

There’s a lot of people, especially young people, who think that there is no solving the conflict, that we’ll always be at war. There’s a lot of racism, a lot of hatred, but most of all, there’s fear.”