19 Arab-Party Seats Test Israel's Coalition Machine

Arab-led parties won 19 seats in Israel’s October 27 parliamentary election, but three Jewish-led opposition parties have ruled out relying on them to form a government. The result puts Arab voters’ representation at the centre of negotiations while showing how quickly elected voices can become bargaining chips in the contest for control of the Knesset.

Neither bloc has the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-member parliament. Preliminary results, completed Thursday, gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc 53 seats, down from 68 in the outgoing Knesset, and the opposition bloc led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot 48. The Joint List won 11 seats and Ra’am eight. Official certification is expected November 4.

Votes, Then Vetoes

Together, the opposition and Arab parties would hold 67 seats if they agreed on a governing arrangement. But Yashar’s Gadi Eisenkot, B’Yachad’s Naftali Bennett and Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman have rejected a coalition with the predominantly Arab Joint List and Ra’am. Democrats leader Yair Golan is the only head of a Jewish-led opposition party who has said he is willing to work with them.

“There are no conditional citizens in a democratic Israel,” Golan wrote in an opinion piece for Haaretz. He said an Arab citizen’s ballot was worth as much as a Jewish citizen’s, and that elected lawmakers were legitimate members of the political system. Golan’s party won eight seats. He met with Eisenkot, B’Yachad No. 2 Yair Lapid and Ra’am chair Mansour Abbas as coalition talks began.

Golan said negotiations could be difficult, but rejected excluding lawmakers. “We will present demands, stand firm on our security and national principles, and will conduct tough and practical negotiations — just as we would with any other faction in parliament,” he said. The arithmetic is plain; the political boundary is not. Arab parties’ support could help produce a majority, while most Jewish-led opposition parties refuse to count that support as a basis for governing.

Lapid, the outgoing opposition leader and B’Yachad No. 2, called the anti-Netanyahu bloc’s result a win despite the absence of an outright victory. On X, he described Netanyahu’s 53 seats as “a collapse” and asked Israelis for patience as negotiations proceeded “in small rooms, slowly, away from the cameras.” He said the effort to form a government would be difficult and success wasn’t guaranteed.

The Coalition Arithmetic

The Jerusalem Post’s explainer says Israelis vote for party lists, with seats distributed roughly according to each list’s share of the national vote if it receives at least 3.25% of valid ballots. The public doesn’t elect the prime minister separately. A government needs sufficient Knesset support to take office and remain in power, usually through a coalition of at least 61 seats. A six-seat party can therefore seek policy commitments or Cabinet appointments when a prospective government needs its votes.

The previous example comes from 2021, when Naftali Bennett became prime minister after an agreement with Lapid brought together eight parties, including Ra’am. Ra’am received no Cabinet posts but negotiated policy commitments and funding for Arab communities. The coalition lasted about a year before internal disagreements brought it down. Netanyahu returned to power after another election in November 2022.

In the current count, Eisenkot’s Yashar has 21 seats, Bennett’s B’Yachad 12, the Democrats eight and Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu seven. Without Liberman, the theoretical anti-Netanyahu majority falls to 60. A government’s first confidence vote requires a majority of votes cast, not necessarily 61 affirmative votes; Bennett’s government passed that vote in 2021 by 60 to 59, with one abstention. A minority government would still need cooperation to survive later votes.

Representation Under Suspicion

Arab citizens’ political mobilization reflects frustration with domestic policies, organized crime and successive wars, according to the Jerusalem Post analysis. Nidal Foqaha, a Palestinian political analyst based in Ramallah, said voters felt increasingly insecure. He cited crime, budget allocations and political rights, as well as developments affecting Palestinians in the West Bank.

Reem Hazzan, a member of the political bureau of the Communist Party of Israel and Hadash, which is part of the Joint List, said turnout exceeded expectations. “It was a great joy that this happened because it means that the people went out and voted and protected themselves, and showed that if they want power, they also know how to get it,” she told The Media Line. She connected voters’ concerns to the war in Gaza, conditions in the West Bank, organized crime in Arab communities and policies of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition.

Likud accused Arab parties of election fraud and foreign interference, including alleged bribery and intimidation, and accused Qatar of financing efforts to influence the election. Doha denied the allegation. Central Elections Committee Chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg directed the Shin Bet security agency to investigate suspicions of foreign interference and election bribery, stressing that the allegations had not been verified. Police separately arrested seven suspects in southern Israel over alleged vote-buying.

Neither investigation had established widespread electoral fraud. Acting Central Elections Committee Director General Dean Livne said there was no basis for claims of systematic violations. The Shin Bet said its inquiry came from intelligence collected independently of political parties and did not implicate Arab voters as a community. Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas denied wrongdoing and welcomed an investigation.

Hazzan called the allegations an attempt to undermine Arab representation. “We actually see it as just a continuation of delegitimizing, of undermining the people's will of how they voted,” she said. Her claim that Netanyahu and the Shin Bet had prepared to challenge the results before voting began had not been independently established. The investigations, meanwhile, had not established the broad fraud alleged by Likud.

The Joint List says it is willing to support an alternative government without formally joining a coalition. Hazzan said opposition leaders must decide whether removing Netanyahu matters more to them than refusing support from Arab parties. After official results are published, President Isaac Herzog will consult parliamentary factions and assign a Knesset member the task of forming a government. The first candidate will have 28 days, with a possible extension of up to 14 days. Until a successor takes office, Netanyahu remains prime minister at the head of the outgoing government.