Arab Votes May Decide Who Rules, but Not Who Governs

Israel’s latest election has exposed a contradiction that goes beyond Benjamin Netanyahu’s struggle to remain in power. On November 5, the Joint List, an alliance of Arab political parties, announced its support for Gadi Eisenkot as the country’s next prime minister. Together with the backing of other opposition parties and Ra’am, the move brought Eisenkot’s recommendations to President Isaac Herzog to 67 members of the 120-seat Knesset. Yet this apparent parliamentary majority conceals a deeper political problem. The Arab parties whose support could help determine Israel’s next government are not necessarily welcome as partners within it.

The numbers tell an important story. Netanyahu’s political bloc holds 53 seats, while the four Jewish opposition parties backing Eisenkot command 48. Joint List contributes 11 seats and Ra’am another eight. Without these 19 Arab lawmakers, the opposition cannot reach the 61-seat threshold required for a parliamentary majority. Their support has therefore become central to the effort to replace Netanyahu.

But recommending a candidate to the president is not the same as joining his cabinet, nor does it guarantee support for a government once formed. The distinction matters because it exposes a persistent tension in Israeli democracy: Arab citizens can exercise considerable influence over who gets the opportunity to govern, while their place in the institutions that actually exercise power remains contested.

Electoral Margins and Political Leverage

The rise of Arab political influence is not simply a matter of parliamentary arithmetic. It also reflects a significant change in political participation. According to analysis by the Israel Democracy Institute, voter turnout in Arab communities rose from 53.2 percent in the 2022 election to approximately 77 percent in 2026. The estimate, based on polling stations in Arab and Druze localities, excludes Arab voters in mixed cities, but the increase is nevertheless striking.

This mobilisation is particularly significant because it comes amid deep pessimism about the country’s democratic future. An Israel Democracy Institute survey conducted shortly before the election found that 78.5 percent of Arab respondents were pessimistic about Israeli democracy, compared with 45 percent of Jewish respondents. Rather than indicating renewed confidence in the political system, higher turnout may reflect a determination to influence a system many Arab citizens believe does not adequately represent them.

The underlying grievances are substantial. Arab citizens make up approximately 21.4 percent of Israel’s population, yet their communities continue to face serious challenges involving public security, infrastructure, employment and access to public resources. In 2025, Israeli police figures cited in Knesset discussions recorded 241 Arab victims of homicide, against 47 Jewish victims. Meanwhile, the government’s five-year development programme for Arab society, known as Resolution 550, has faced substantial budget reallocations and cuts, according to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

These issues help explain why electoral participation matters. For many Arab voters, political representation is not an abstract debate about parliamentary seats. It is connected to whether the state can protect their communities, provide adequate services and distribute public resources fairly. Their increased participation signals a demand to influence decisions that directly shape their lives.

The Limits of Democratic Inclusion

Yet electoral mobilisation does not automatically translate into governing power. The distinction between winning representation, influencing coalition formation and participating in executive decision-making is fundamental. Arab parties have demonstrated their ability to affect the first two. Their access to the third remains much less certain.

The disagreement within Eisenkot’s opposition illustrates the problem. Avigdor Liberman has supported Eisenkot’s candidacy while rejecting a minority government dependent on external Arab parliamentary backing. The Joint List, meanwhile, has indicated that it is prepared to support political change without necessarily joining the cabinet. Its position reflects both domestic priorities and opposition to Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, particularly the occupation of the West Bank.

This creates an awkward arrangement. Arab lawmakers may help secure the parliamentary support needed to replace Netanyahu, yet they may remain outside the executive institutions responsible for national policy. External support can provide parliamentary leverage, but it does not confer ministerial authority or guarantee influence over security, budgets and other major decisions.

The problem has deeper constitutional roots. Israel’s 2018 Nation-State Basic Law established that national self-determination in the state is exclusive to the Jewish people. Its supporters regard the legislation as an affirmation of Israel’s national identity; critics argue that it reinforces an unequal relationship between the state’s Jewish character and the citizenship of its Arab population. The law does not strip Arab citizens of their voting rights, but it has intensified debate over the meaning of equal citizenship within a state constitutionally defined around one national group.

This tension should not be reduced to a simple choice between Jewish identity and democracy. Israel’s political challenge is more specific: how can a state preserve its national character while ensuring that citizens outside the majority group have meaningful access to political influence? Electoral representation is an important part of the answer, but it cannot settle the question on its own.

Beyond Netanyahu, the Test of Equality

The possibility of an Eisenkot-led government should therefore be examined beyond the immediate question of whether Netanyahu will lose office. Eisenkot is a former military chief of staff and a figure rooted in Israel’s national security establishment. His support from Arab parties does not, by itself, indicate an ideological convergence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or a transformation of the country’s security doctrine.

There is, nevertheless, a precedent for Arab participation in national government. In 2021, Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, joined the governing coalition formed under Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. That experience demonstrated that an Arab party could become part of a governing arrangement, even if the partnership remained politically controversial and institutionally fragile. The current debate raises the question of whether such participation can become more durable rather than remaining an exceptional response to parliamentary necessity.

The answer will depend less on declarations of inclusion than on measurable policy outcomes. Will a new government address violence in Arab communities with greater urgency? Will it protect development budgets, improve infrastructure and expand access to education and employment? Will Arab representatives have a meaningful role in shaping national priorities, rather than being approached only when their parliamentary votes are needed?

These questions matter because democratic equality is not exhausted by the right to cast a ballot. It also concerns the ability to influence the decisions made in the name of the electorate. A government can count minority votes in its formation while still leaving minority interests at the margins of its governing agenda.

Israel’s 67-seat paradox is therefore about more than Netanyahu, Eisenkot or the latest coalition negotiations. It reveals a test of the country’s democratic institutions. Arab citizens have shown that their votes can help determine who receives the mandate to govern. The harder question is whether the political system will allow them to help shape what governing actually means.

Replacing a prime minister may change the balance of power in the Knesset. It will not, by itself, resolve the gap between electoral participation and political equality. That gap is where the next chapter of Israeli democracy will be contested.