Israel’s October 27 election has produced a political arithmetic that could place Arab-led parties at the centre of the country’s next government. With preliminary projections giving the Joint List and Ra’am a combined 19 seats in the 120-member Knesset, neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc nor the opposition led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot appears capable of securing a parliamentary majority on its own. The outcome represents more than an electoral breakthrough for Arab political representation: it exposes the ideological divisions within Israel’s political establishment and raises difficult questions about coalition-building, Palestinian rights, national identity and the practical limits of political cooperation.
Israel’s latest election has created a potentially decisive opening for Arab-led political parties, transforming them from peripheral participants in parliamentary politics into influential players in the struggle to form the next government. The preliminary results, based on approximately 90 per cent of ballots counted as of October 28, indicate that the country’s established political blocs remain short of the majority required to govern. The Joint List and Ra’am, meanwhile, have secured a combined projected strength of 19 seats, giving them considerable leverage in post-election negotiations.
The figures illustrate the scale of the challenge facing Israel’s political leadership. Netanyahu’s bloc is projected to hold 53 seats, while the opposition camp led by Eisenkot has 48. Neither comes close to the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-member Knesset. Although the remaining votes could alter the final distribution, the central political reality is already apparent: forming a government may require negotiations beyond the conventional boundaries of Israel’s Jewish-led political blocs.
The projected 19 seats won by Arab-led parties represent a substantial increase from the five seats each held by the Joint List and Ra’am in the outgoing Knesset. Their combined strength also exceeds the previous record of 15 seats secured by Arab-majority parties in 2020. This expansion gives Arab political representation greater numerical weight at a moment when the balance of power between Israel’s principal political camps remains uncertain.
However, electoral strength does not automatically translate into government participation. The decisive questions will be whether the rival blocs are prepared to negotiate with Arab-led parties, what conditions they are willing to accept and whether the Arab parties themselves can agree on a common political strategy.
The Joint List and Ra’am represent overlapping constituencies but have developed significantly different approaches to Israeli parliamentary politics. Their combined tally may make them kingmakers, yet their ideological differences could complicate efforts to use their electoral strength collectively.
The Joint List brings together Hadash, Ta’al and Balad, three parties that agreed to contest the election on a common slate after negotiations in August 2026. The alliance traces its origins to 2015, when four Arab-majority parties, including Ra’am, joined forces to overcome Israel’s electoral threshold. Ra’am subsequently left the alliance ahead of the 2021 election, reflecting differences over political strategy and engagement with governing coalitions.
The current alliance is projected to win 12 seats and is headed by Yousef Jabareen, with Ahmad Tibi and Sami Abu Shehadeh representing its constituent political traditions.
Hadash, rooted in socialist and communist politics, advocates equality, Jewish-Arab partnership and peaceful coexistence. Its ideological framework places considerable emphasis on economic justice and cooperation between Jewish and Arab citizens. Ta’al, founded by veteran parliamentarian Ahmad Tibi, focuses on minority rights, Palestinian concerns and the practical representation of Arab citizens within Israel’s political institutions.
Balad, led by Sami Abu Shehadeh, places greater emphasis on Arab national identity and the principle that Israel should be a state belonging equally to all its citizens, rather than one defined primarily by Jewish national identity.
Despite these differences, the three parties share concerns about discrimination, public investment, equality and the rights of Palestinians. Their disagreements, however, become more consequential when electoral cooperation must be translated into decisions about supporting a government.
The Joint List may be prepared to support a government from outside Parliament’s governing coalition, provided its political demands are taken seriously. But its reservations about Israeli military policy, particularly regarding Gaza and Lebanon, could prevent it from formally joining a government led by Eisenkot.
Ra’am follows a different political philosophy. Established in 1996 and rooted in the southern branch of Israel’s Islamic Movement, it is led by Mansour Abbas. The party has increasingly emphasised practical improvements in the daily lives of Arab citizens, including housing, employment, public services, economic development and measures to combat crime.
Its most important precedent came in 2021, when it joined the coalition supporting the government led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. This made Ra’am the first Arab party to formally participate in an Israeli governing coalition.
That experience demonstrated that parliamentary cooperation across deep ideological divisions is possible when the parties involved identify sufficient common ground. It also exposed the difficulties of maintaining such arrangements when national security, Palestinian issues and competing political priorities dominate public debate.
Ra’am’s willingness to negotiate directly with Jewish-led parties could once again make it an important interlocutor. Its approach suggests that participation in government can be used to obtain concrete policy commitments, even when complete agreement on national identity or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains out of reach.
The projected result marks a significant moment for Arab political representation in Israel. A combined 19 seats give the Joint List and Ra’am greater bargaining power than they have held in recent years and could force mainstream political leaders to reconsider their approach to coalition formation.
Yet the final outcome remains uncertain. The preliminary tally could change as counting continues, negotiations may expose differences within the opposition, and the two Arab-led forces may pursue separate strategies. Even if their support proves decisive, the resulting arrangement could be a fragile minority government rather than a stable coalition.
The larger significance of the election lies in the question it poses to Israeli democracy: can a political system that depends on parliamentary cooperation accommodate parties representing a substantial Arab minority when their positions conflict with the priorities of major Jewish-led parties?
The answer will depend on whether political leaders treat Arab representation as a temporary numerical convenience or as a legitimate component of democratic government. For the Joint List and Ra’am, the challenge is equally substantial. They must decide whether to use their influence primarily to secure immediate gains for Arab communities, to shape national policy or to pursue a combination of both.
Israel’s next government will ultimately be determined by negotiations, not projections alone. But the election has already demonstrated that Arab-led parties can no longer be dismissed as marginal actors in the country’s parliamentary arithmetic. Their 19 projected seats have made them central to the debate over who governs Israel, under what conditions and with what political priorities.
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