Arab Parties Hold the Balance in Israel's Election, but Jewish Blocs Shun Their Support

Israel's parliamentary election has produced few clear outcomes. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud appears to be the largest party, but its bloc has not won enough seats to form a government. The opposition that describes itself as Zionist also falls short of a majority.

One result is not in dispute: Palestinian citizens of Israel turned out in large numbers. An estimated 80 percent of eligible Palestinian voters cast ballots in Tuesday's election, a sharp rise in participation from a community that makes up about 21 percent of the population. Analysts say anger over the war on Gaza and the overt racism of the governing coalition helped drive the surge.

The two main lists representing Palestinian citizens, the United Arab List (Ra'am) and the Joint List, together won 19 of the 120 seats in parliament. That could make them pivotal in deciding which camp forms a government, if either is willing to work with them.

With all ballots counted, the pro-Netanyahu bloc holds 53 seats and the Jewish opposition bloc opposed to him holds 48. Adding the 19 seats held by Palestinian parties, a majority of parliament is against Netanyahu.

Instead of acknowledging that support, leading politicians have sought to undermine it. Likud framed the result as a bid for the "Islamisation of Israel" and called on the internal security service, the Shin Bet, to investigate possible foreign interference behind the Palestinian turnout. Others cast the vote as an "attempt to steal the election". The moves appear to question the legitimacy of the Arab vote and could taint any future opposition effort to ally with Arab parties.

Much of the Jewish-led opposition has criticized Netanyahu's government as corrupt, incompetent and harmful to Israel's international standing, yet remains reluctant to accept Palestinian backing to remove him. The left-wing Democrats are the likeliest to cooperate with the Arab parties. On election night, former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid ruled out sitting with Palestinian parties in government, even though they relied on their support during their brief government of 2021 and 2022. On Thursday, Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beytenu also ruled out such a coalition, saying he would sit with "neither Bibi nor Tibi". He used Netanyahu's nickname and named Ahmad Tibi, leader of the Ta'al party within the Joint List, as a stand-in for the wider Palestinian bloc.

Orly Noy, who ran for the Palestinian-dominated Balad party, said the large turnout was predictable. She said the governing coalition had shown there were no red lines in Gaza, and Palestinians in Israel sensed they might be next. She added that people could not face another term of soaring crime and a police force headed by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. "The last tool they had in their toolbox was their vote," she said, "but even that now seems to be being undermined and delegitimised." She also questioned why the opposition and the press treat the outcome as a three-way split, and criticized talk in parts of the opposition of joining Netanyahu in a national unity government.

Political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg said the differences run deep. Much of mainstream Israeli politics rests on an assumption of Jewish supremacy, he said, so it is understandable that the Arab vote is seen as a challenge. Many argue this has been state policy since the 2018 Nation State Law, which made the right to national self-determination exclusive to Jewish people. He described very different ideas of what citizenship means and for whose benefit Israel should be governed, though he said these differences cannot disguise the racism underpinning it all.

Mauricio Lapchik, Hebrew campaign director for the Joint List, said opponents want a government with only Jewish voices. In any other democratic country, he said, such a majority would be called a victory. In Israel, he argued, the voice of Arabs is not treated as equal to that of Jews, so no one can talk about a win.