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Israel's upcoming elections are likely to produce a change in the government, but are not likely to knock the Israeli-Syrian peace talks off track.

At the opening of the Knesset’s winter session Oct. 27, Israeli President Shimon Peres announced that Israel will hold early elections after Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni failed to cobble together a coalition.

Aiming for a political comeback, Israeli right-wing Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu wasted no time in revving up his political campaign. Netanyahu’s party, which is now sitting in the opposition, has long been favored in past polls. All Likud needed was for Livni’s efforts to fail so the party would have an opening to come back into the government after nearly three years.

The election race will undoubtedly be fierce, with two recent polls now giving Livni’s Kadima party a slight lead over Likud. Netanyahu’s strategy is to win back coalition allies like the ultra-orthdox Shas party by maintaining that the division of Jerusalem will not be up for negotiation (an unwavering demand by Shas that prevented the party from joining Livni’s coalition). Yet while Netanyahu is maintaining a hard-line stance against the Palestinians, he has also made clear that he would continue to seek peace with Israel’s surrounding Arab neighbors. This is of course a clear reference to the Israel-Syria peace negotiations.