Arab Inclusion in an Eisenkot Government?

Beyond the numbers

A recent poll reported by the Jerusalem Post found that 61% of voters for Israel’s four principal opposition parties support an Eisenkot-led government that includes the Arab party Ra’am. The survey, conducted on election night by Hebrew University’s Accord Center, offers an important indication that opposition voters may be more receptive to Arab participation in government than some of their political leaders have acknowledged.

But the result raises more questions than it answers.

The poll tested support for including Ra’am, not for a government dependent on both Arab parties. That distinction matters because the Joint List, with 11 Knesset seats, is now larger than Ra’am, which holds eight. Both parties together control 19 seats and would be needed to give the opposition a conventional parliamentary majority.

The more important question, therefore, is not simply whether opposition voters support Arab participation. It is whether opposition leaders are prepared to reconsider their campaign commitments, whether their parties would remain united behind such a decision, and whether Israeli society is prepared to accept a government dependent on Arab political support in the aftermath of October 7 and amid an ongoing regional confrontation.

The path to an Arab-supported government is not a matter of coalition arithmetic alone. It is a question of political legitimacy, security considerations, social cohesion, and strategic timing.

What the Poll Actually Tells Us

The Accord Center survey questioned 467 people who had already voted for one of four opposition parties: Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar, Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad, Yair Golan’s Democrats, and Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu. Results were weighted according to party size.

Sixty-one percent favored an Eisenkot-led government including Ra’am. Twenty percent preferred new elections, 12% supported a rotation government with Netanyahu, and 7% favored a coalition with ultra-Orthodox parties.

The finding is significant, but with limitations.

First, it represents the views of voters for four particular opposition parties, not the Israeli electorate as a whole. Second, it asked about Ra’am, not the Joint List. Third, it did not establish whether respondents would accept the departure of an opposition party whose leadership refused to participate in a government dependent on Arab parties.

An earlier October 7–8 Jerusalem Post survey illustrates the difference between opposition voters and the broader electorate. That survey found that 59% of Israelis opposed an Arab party joining the next government, while 36% supported it.

The two surveys are not directly comparable because they questioned different populations and were conducted at different times. Nevertheless, they suggest that support for Arab political participation may be considerably greater within the opposition electorate than within Israeli society generally.

The election-night poll could therefore provide opposition leaders with political cover to reconsider their campaign pledges. They could argue that their own voters have demonstrated a willingness to accept Arab participation rather than another election or a Netanyahu-led government. But voter acceptance and party leadership acceptance are two different things.

The Coalition Arithmetic Is More Complicated Than It Appears

The election results leave the Netanyahu-aligned bloc with 53 seats, the four principal opposition parties with 48, and the two Arab parties with a combined 19. On paper, combining the opposition and Arab parties produces 67 seats, a comfortable parliamentary majority. But that calculation assumes all four opposition parties remain together.

Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu holds seven seats. If Liberman withdraws his party because of Arab participation, the arithmetic changes substantially. The opposition’s 48 seats would fall to 41. Adding all 19 Arab seats would produce a total of just 60, one short of the conventional 61-seat majority.

That does not necessarily make an alternative government impossible. Israeli parliamentary procedure permits a government to receive confidence with more votes in favor than against, rather than requiring 61 affirmative votes in every circumstance. But a government dependent on such an arrangement would have a narrower margin for political maneuver. The distinction is important. The inclusion of both Arab parties does not automatically resolve the opposition’s coalition problem. It could create another one if Liberman decides that his political commitments prevent him from participating. Liberman has been particularly explicit. He has ruled out not only formal coalition participation by Arab parties but also a government that depends on their support, directly or indirectly. His position is therefore more than a negotiating obstacle. It raises the possibility that the very arrangement needed to replace Netanyahu could cause the opposition coalition to lose the seats necessary to do so.

The Leadership Question: Liberman and Eisenkot

Liberman is an obvious question mark, but Eisenkot presents a different and potentially more complicated calculation. Eisenkot has publicly stated that Ra’am would not join a government he leads unless Arab parties accept a series of principles, including recognition of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, acceptance of the Declaration of Independence, universal military or national service, and recognition of Hamas as a terrorist organization. He has also made clear that he does not currently believe Ra’am meets those conditions. These are not incidental campaign statements. They form part of the political commitments Eisenkot offered his voters.

His background is also relevant. As a former IDF Chief of Staff, Eisenkot has spent much of his professional life assessing Israel’s security environment and the consequences of strategic decisions. It would be reasonable to expect him to consider not only the parliamentary implications of relying on Arab parties but also the security and public-legitimacy questions that could accompany such an arrangement during a continuing regional confrontation involving Iran and its aligned organizations.

That does not mean Arab political participation is inherently a security threat. Nor does it establish that Eisenkot would necessarily reject cooperation. It does mean that his calculation may be different from that of opposition politicians whose principal concern is assembling a majority to replace Netanyahu. Eisenkot would have to consider whether the resulting government could maintain public confidence, manage national security responsibilities, and survive political challenges from both inside and outside the coalition.

Is Israeli Society Ready?

This is perhaps the most consequential question. Before October 7, Israel had already crossed important political thresholds. Ra’am participated in the Bennett-Lapid governing coalition formed in 2021, becoming the first independent Arab party to join an Israeli government coalition. That experience demonstrated that Arab participation was institutionally possible, even if politically controversial. But the circumstances today are different. October 7 reinforced an existing perception among many Israelis that Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran-aligned regional actors represent interconnected security challenges. Those concerns have inevitably complicated the political debate over cooperation with Arab parties.

Yet Arab citizens, Arab political parties, and individual Arab politicians should not be treated as interchangeable with Hamas or other regional organizations. Their political positions, public commitments, and relationships with the Israeli state must be assessed individually. The relevant question is whether a government dependent on Arab parliamentary support could maintain sufficient public confidence to govern effectively.

The October polling suggests that the opposition electorate may be more receptive to such an arrangement than the broader Israeli population. That creates a potential legitimacy problem: a government could reflect the preferences of a majority of its supporting voters while facing substantial opposition among the country’s wider electorate. Both parliamentary legitimacy and broader societal acceptance matter.

The Lesson of the 2021 Government

Israel’s experience with the Bennett-Lapid government offers a more relevant comparison than distant historical examples. That government demonstrated that an Arab party could participate in a governing coalition and that political cooperation across significant ideological differences was possible. But it also demonstrated the difficulties of maintaining a government dependent on parties with substantially different political priorities and constituencies. The government lasted approximately one year before collapsing.

That experience does not establish that another Arab-supported government would necessarily meet the same fate. The political circumstances, party alignments, and security environment are different. It does, however, offer a practical lesson: assembling a parliamentary majority is not the same as establishing a durable governing arrangement. An Eisenkot government would have to negotiate not only the conditions under which Ra’am and the Joint List might provide support, but also the policy disagreements that could emerge over security, national service, Palestinian issues, and domestic priorities.

The Overlooked Alternative: Parliamentary Influence Without Coalition Membership

There is another possibility that deserves attention. Arab political influence does not necessarily require Arab parties to hold ministerial positions.

A government could potentially be formed with Arab parties providing outside parliamentary support, either through confidence votes or cooperation on specific legislation. Such an arrangement would allow opposition leaders to distinguish between formal coalition membership and parliamentary cooperation. It would not eliminate the political controversy. Liberman has already rejected reliance on Arab parties even from outside the government, and Eisenkot would still face the conditions he has publicly established. Nevertheless, the distinction could become important in coalition negotiations. The Arab parties could exercise meaningful legislative influence without necessarily becoming formal coalition partners. Whether that arrangement would prove sufficiently stable is another question.

The alternative is a national unity arrangement involving some combination of opposition parties and Likud, potentially without Netanyahu. That possibility would also require leaders to reconsider campaign commitments, particularly their promises not to serve under Netanyahu. The central issue is that Israel’s election results have not produced an obvious governing majority. Every available arrangement requires political compromises.