Arab Parties Win 19 Seats, Coalition Doors Shut

After Israel’s October 27, 2026 legislative election, Yashar party chief Gadi Eisenkot, B'Yachad chairman Naftali Bennett and Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman ruled out a coalition with the Arab-led parties. The Joint List won 12 seats and Ra'am won seven. Together, they hold 19 seats; with those parties excluded, the anti-Netanyahu bloc was commonly described as having 48 seats after about 90 percent of the vote had been counted on Wednesday.

The Coalition Gate

Bennett and Liberman rejected a coalition with any non-Jewish parties, saying there was no mandate for such a partnership after October 7. Netanyahu had warned that his rivals would form a government with Arab parties and argued it couldn't address threats to Israel's security. Early Wednesday morning, after exit polls indicated that a minority government supported by Arab parties could threaten his continued rule, he said: “It is simply forbidden to endanger Israel and form a government that rests on anti-Zionist Arab parties.”

The arithmetic is plain; so is the line drawn around who may exercise political power. Nineteen seats belong to the two Arab-majority parties, but their participation in a governing coalition remains a point of dispute among Jewish party leaders. Only Democrats chief Yair Golan has voiced a contrary position among those leaders.

Conditions for Partnership

Ra'am, described as more pragmatic than the Joint List, wants to join an anti-Netanyahu coalition. Its leader, Mansour Abbas, has taken steps to make the faction more acceptable to the Jewish public, including bringing former senior police commander Yoav Segalovitz onto Ra'am's Knesset slate. Abbas has recognized Israel as a Jewish state for years, meeting a condition Eisenkot had set for partnership.

That wasn't enough. In the run-up to the election, Eisenkot added another condition: recognizing Hamas as a terror group that Israel must destroy. Abbas condemned the October 7, 2023 attack, called for the hostages' release and supports a two-state framework rejected by Hamas. He hasn't called for Hamas's destruction. He has said Israel's war against the group has come at significant expense to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Abbas hasn't ruled out meeting Eisenkot's latest condition, saying it could be discussed in coalition negotiations. Even agreement between them wouldn't satisfy Bennett and Liberman, who have rejected partnership with any non-Jewish parties. The terms of entry shift; the exclusion stays.

The Seats and the Refusal

The Joint List, led by Yousef Jabareen, has shown little appetite for joining a political partnership, but has expressed eagerness to work with other anti-Netanyahu parties to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That leaves a distinction between joining a government and cooperating to remove its leader. The source gives no indication that the Joint List has agreed to enter a coalition.

Two sources familiar with the matter said Bennett and Liberman had privately praised Abbas as a loyal partner in their previous 2021-2022 government. Their private praise sits beside their current refusal to include non-Jewish parties in a coalition. The election has supplied the seats; party leaders are deciding which voters' representatives count as acceptable partners, and which conditions Arab leaders must meet to be heard at the governing table.