Why Arab parties may not be the ‘kingmakers’ in this Israeli election — SkimNews
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- Joint List and Ra'am are projected to hold a record combined 17 seats in the 120-member Knesset, while partial results leave no clear winner — 54 seats for Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc and 49 for Gadi Eisenkot's opposition alliance.
- Gadi Eisenkot's opposition alliance plus the Arab parties would clear the 61 seats needed for a Knesset majority and remove Netanyahu, with The Times of Israel's partial tally putting the combination at 66 seats.
- Benjamin Netanyahu called a government reliant on anti-Zionist Arab parties "a shame and a disgrace" and "simply forbidden," while Eisenkot has refused them despite the arithmetic and set tests — recognition of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, the Declaration of Independence's values, national service for all Israelis — without saying whether Ra'am qualifies.
- Mansour Abbas, leader of Ra'am, has signalled willingness to join an Eisenkot government on the condition that internal security be handled by the Arab party, and placed Jewish lawmaker Yoav Segalovitz second on Ra'am's electoral slate.
- Ahmad Tibi said the Joint List is extending its hand to the opposition alliance to oust Netanyahu, and fellow Joint List leader Yousef Jabareen said the party is prepared to take responsibility for bringing Netanyahu's far-right coalition down — though neither committed the bloc to joining a government.
- Yair Golan, leader of the centre-left Democrats within Eisenkot's bloc, urged allies to abandon their refusal to work with Arab parties, writing "We must no longer accept Netanyahu's racist division between Jewish votes and Arab votes," while Naftali Bennett has reversed course and wants only "Zionist" parties in government.
- Ra'am was a possible kingmaker after the 2021 elections and its support was vital to the short-lived Bennett-Lapid government, with Arab parties also backing governments from outside during Yitzhak Rabin's tenure — evidence, analysts say, that the barrier to an Arab-led coalition is ideological rather than constitutional or practical.
Why it matters: Netanyahu's bloc still holds 54 seats, and Ghanam calls its resilience "the most telling result" of the vote. Najar's diagnosis undercuts the arithmetic debate: the 17-seat Arab bloc's exclusion is ideological, so opposition leaders who call Netanyahu a threat to democracy still face the question of sharing power with Palestinian citizens of Israel.
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