Israel’s Arab citizens could help decide who will govern after the Oct. 27 election, yet neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his main challenger, former Israeli military chief Gadi Eisenkot, is willing to bring Arab parties into his coalition.
ELECTORAL STAKE
The upcoming parliamentary vote will be the first since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attack and wider regional conflict.
Forming a government typically requires a coalition controlling 61 of the Knesset’s (parliament) 120 seats.
An Oct. 4 poll by Israeli public broadcaster Kan projected 51 seats for Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc and 52 for four predominantly Jewish opposition parties spanning the political spectrum from right to left. Arab parties were projected to win 13 seats, with four going to a party outside either bloc. Even with those four seats, the opposition would remain five short of an outright majority in the Knesset.
For Arab citizens, roughly one-fifth of Israel’s population and descendants of Palestinians who remained in 1948, the paradox is stark: their votes could shape the next government while their representatives are excluded from it.
POLITICS OF EXCLUSION
Netanyahu, on trial for three counts of corruption charges he denies, has made Arab support for his rivals a campaign weapon, portraying these votes as a national threat.
Eisenkot, a former army chief who served in Netanyahu’s wartime cabinet, rejects Netanyahu’s rhetoric while preserving the political exclusion.
Although he has accused Netanyahu of portraying Arab politicians as “traitors,” he sets conditions that effectively exclude them from his own coalition, including a requirement that parties representing Israel’s Palestinian minority embrace the country’s identity as a Jewish state. In a recent interview on Israel’s Ynet news site, he said no Arab party meets his conditions.
The Joint List is the political alliance of Arab-majority political parties in Israel. It was originally formed by Hadash, Balad, Ra’am and Ta’al ahead of the 2015 election. In August, Hadash, Ta’al and Balad reached an agreement to run together in the 2026 Israeli legislative election, while Ra’am chose to run separately.
Political psychologist Prof. Eran Halperin argued in a recent interview on Israel’s Ynet news site that Eisenkot’s tougher stance was aimed at courting right-wing voters opposed to Arab political participation, but it is an “implausible fantasy” for Eisenkot to secure 61 parliamentary seats without Arab parties.
He proposed including the Arab-majority party Ra’am in a coalition and seeking outside support from other Arab parties, arguing that Jewish-Arab political cooperation was also essential to rebuilding trust between the two communities.
In 2021, Netanyahu’s camp sought Ra’am’s support, but the Arab party joined the centrist coalition with crucial seats that ended Netanyahu’s 12-year hold on power, underscoring the political stakes in Netanyahu’s efforts to delegitimize Arab parties as potential partners for his rivals.
Late last month, Israel’s Central Elections Committee voted to disqualify Sami Abu Shehadeh, leader of Balad, from running in the Knesset elections with support from Eisenkot’s Yashar party and Yair Golan’s left-wing Democrats, despite Golan’s commitment to Jewish-Arab partnership.
Abu Shehadeh withdrew after Supreme Court judges indicated they would uphold the ban.
The move sparked criticism from Israel’s Arab community. Ahmad Tibi, lawmaker and leader of the Ta’al, called the vote “a slap in the face of the entire Arab public,” while human rights group Adalah accused the process of seeking to “turn racism against Palestinians into election propaganda.”
THE ARAB PARTIES’ LEVERAGE
Arab parties, however, are seeking to use their parliamentary leverage to secure political gains. They can recommend a candidate to the president and influence a government’s confidence vote by supporting or abstaining.
Yousef Jabareen, chairman of the Joint List and leader of Hadash, announced on Saturday that his party was ready to back any government that replaces Netanyahu, subject to negotiations.
“According to all the data, an alternative government cannot be formed without negotiating with the Joint List,” he said in a video statement.
His demands include a funded program to tackle crime in Arab communities, an end to house demolitions, and a political path toward Palestinian statehood. He ruled out supporting budgets for wars and settlements.
Arab voters have their own priorities. A September Israel Democracy Institute poll found that a party’s position on crime in Arab society is ranked most important among Arab voters.
In a May survey by the Moshe Dayan Center and the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation at Tel Aviv University, 77.2 percent of respondents supported the inclusion of an Arab party in the next government coalition, and 63.7 percent believed in or favored an Arab-Jewish political partnership. ■