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Arab-led parties in Israel are on course to win a combined 17 seats in the country’s 120-member parliament, the Knesset, according to exit polls and preliminary results following Tuesday’s election.
More than 84 per cent of the votes had been counted by Wednesday, with the Joint List and the United Arab List (Ra’am) emerging as the main Arab-led political forces. The results indicate a potential record performance for Arab parties, amid a surge in voter turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas said he hoped the final results would give his party and the anti-Netanyahu bloc the 61 seats required to form a government.
Ra’am currently holds five seats in the Knesset and previously joined Israel’s coalition government that held power from 2021 to 2022. Abbas said both major political blocs had contacted his party before and after the election.
The bloc led by former Israeli military chief Gadi Eisenkot and his Yashar party was trailing the coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. Final results were expected later in the week.
According to Israel’s Channel 12, turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel reached around 80 per cent, surpassing the previous record set in 1999.
Before preliminary results began to emerge, Abbas told Channel 12 that the numbers indicated that no political bloc would be able to form a government.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, former Israeli ambassador Alon Pinkas said parties such as Eisenkot’s could face difficulties forming a government because they had pledged during the election campaign not to form a coalition with Arab parties.
“They will have to pay the price for that,” Pinkas said, warning that Arab parties could no longer be considered only when their votes were needed to form a government.
“Keeping Arabs out is no longer an option,” he said.
Netanyahu and his far-right allies urged their supporters to turn out on election day, warning them about rising participation among Israeli citizens of Palestinian descent. Arab politicians condemned the strategy, describing it as racist and inflammatory.