Israel's Kingmakers Question: Can Arab Parties Turn Votes Into Real Political Power?

Neither Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc nor the bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot reached the 61 seats needed to govern in Israel's latest election. That leaves two Arab-led lists, the Joint List and Ra'am, in a position to decide who forms the next government. Whether they can turn that arithmetic into real power is a different question.

Arab Israelis are citizens or permanent residents of Arab descent, mostly Palestinians who stayed inside Israel's borders after the state was established on May 14, 1948. The 1948-49 war forced an estimated 700,000 to 800,000 Palestinians to flee. Roughly 150,000 remained and became citizens, though they lived under military rule until 1966. Today the community includes Muslims, Christians, Druze and Bedouin. They have voted since the first election in 1949, yet remain unequally served in housing, infrastructure, public safety and public resources.

The legal frame adds weight to that gap. Israel has no single written constitution. Its Declaration of Independence promised equality of political rights, but a 2018 Nation-State Law defined the right to national self-determination as belonging exclusively to the Jewish people. The Palestinian non-profit Adalah counts more than 65 laws that discriminate directly or indirectly against Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

This year, the ballot itself was contested. In September, the Central Elections Committee voted to bar the Joint List and Ra'am, invoking Basic Law provisions that allow lists to be disqualified for rejecting Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, inciting racism or supporting armed struggle. The Supreme Court unanimously overturned the bans. Balad's leader, Sami Abou Shahadeh, withdrew his individual candidacy before the court ruled on his own disqualification.

Arab parties have sat in the Knesset for decades without holding power. Representation first came through the Communist party and Arab lists allied to Mapai, Labor's forerunner. Hadash, Ta'al, Balad and Ra'am came later. Until 2021, the closest they came was Yitzhak Rabin's second government, which survived on the outside support of five Arab MKs. In 2021, Mansour Abbas's Ra'am became the first independent Arab party to join a governing coalition, under Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. Abbas bargained for investment in Arab towns, housing, infrastructure and action against organised crime. The coalition collapsed in 2022 after some right-wing MKs defected, and Bennett has since apologised for governing with Ra'am.

The Arab camp is split on strategy. Alvite Ningthoujam of Symbiosis School of International Studies in Pune says Ra'am's approach offered practical gains but drew criticism for coming at the expense of wider Palestinian demands, while the Joint List has taken a more oppositional line centred on Palestinian national identity and resistance to occupation. He argues this is not simply pragmatism versus principle; it reflects different judgments about where leverage lies.

The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack and the Gaza war, still ongoing, have narrowed the space further. Omair Anas of Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University says the war has deepened the historical trauma of occupation, killing and expulsion across Arab populations inside and outside Israel. He argues the right and the centre differ only cosmetically on a Palestinian state and Gaza, and that the liberal centre is weak. Arab voters, he says, are realistic about their isolation within the system, and disillusionment lowers the incentive to vote even though staying home would weaken representation more.

The numbers show the stakes. A party needs 3.25% of the vote, about 165,000 to 170,000 votes this time, to enter the Knesset; votes for slates below it are discarded. In 2022, a split left Balad under the line, and the revived Joint List, which includes Balad, aims to prevent a repeat. In March 2021, the Joint List and Ra'am together won 379,647 votes, about 8.61% of valid votes, and 10 of 120 seats. Arab turnout has been volatile: 64.8% in 2020, 44.6% in 2021, 53.2% in 2022, against a national rate near 70%.

The larger obstacle is acceptance. Most leaders of the Jewish-led opposition bloc have ruled out joining forces with Arab-led parties, so the election may give them numbers but no formal way to use them. Ningthoujam points to one route: supporting a government in confidence votes without taking ministerial posts, in exchange for policy commitments. What to watch is whether that kind of influence materialises, and whether Arab turnout recovers.