How Arab parties could hold critical balance of power in Israeli election
Seven Lights
Arab parties could hold a critical balance of power in Israel’s closely fought general election, polls indicate, according to the BBC, reporting from Nazareth, the largest Arab-majority city in Israel, where students are handing out leaflets by the roadside urging motorists to vote next week.
Arab Israelis account for about a fifth of the population and often describe themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel. Disaffection has often driven down past turnout among them, but this election there is a strong push to get rid of the most right-wing governing coalition in the country’s history — an alliance between veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties, the BBC reported. “I see it as our duty to bring down this extremist government. They treat us as second-class,” Arkan Badran, 23, who is taking part in the leafleting, told the BBC. “I call on all young men and women to vote for Arab lists, which represent us, because this is our future.”
Most opinion polls indicate that neither Netanyahu and his partners nor the main “Change Bloc”, led by centre-right former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, has a clear path to a parliamentary majority, according to the BBC. Polls this week have suggested that both Eisenkot’s bloc and Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist bloc could each win around 50 of the 120 seats in Israel’s parliament, while 13 or 14 seats in total could go to Arab-majority groupings — the Joint Arab List, a coalition of Hadash, Balad and Taal, and the smaller United Arab List, an Islamist party headed by politician Mansour Abbas, the BBC said.
If those polls are right, anti-Netanyahu parties wanting to form a governing coalition would either have to go back on pledges not to work with the prime minister or make a deal with Arab-majority lists, the BBC reported. A major sticking point is that Eisenkot has so far ruled out forming a government with Arab parties, citing a lack of shared values, and all but one of the leading Jewish parties have ruled out forming a coalition government with Arab parties, according to the BBC.
Israel’s politics and society have been changed by the deadly, unprecedented Hamas-led assault on the country on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza, with increased mistrust of and hostility towards the country’s Arab minority, the BBC reported. “After October 7, we were treated as enemies of this country,” Suha Salman Mousa, executive director of the Mossawa Centre in Nazareth, which advocates for equal rights for Arab citizens, told the BBC. Salman Mousa accused ministers of “systematic discrimination and incitement” against Arab Israelis, the BBC said. Civil society groups say budgets for Arab communities have been cut disproportionately; the government says reductions are needed to fund wartime defence and security spending, the outlet added.
Some electioneering has sought to capitalise by deepening social divisions, according to the BBC. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has vowed to “Judaise” parts of the northern Galilee and southern Negev regions where most Arabs live, likening this to expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu has recently claimed his rivals plan to team up with Arabs and form a “dangerous government,” and his campaign has put up billboards suggesting a choice between “Right or Palestine” and used AI-generated videos presenting his opponents embracing Arab leaders, the BBC reported.
“In a word it’s racism. But if we’re trying to explain why, it’s because of the political interests of Benjamin Netanyahu,” Mohammed Magadli, a news anchor at Radio Nas in Nazareth and an analyst for Israel’s Channel 12, told the BBC about Change Bloc leaders’ refusal to join forces with Arab parties. “He’s trying all the time to pull the legitimacy of the Arab parties - because they’re Arab, because they’re Palestinian.”
The Economist has written that Israel’s Arab parties could be the kingmakers in its election.