More Arab Parties As Israel Becomes Anti Netanyahu

A survey published August 19, found that 74% of respondents believe Arab Israel society urgently needs new public figures and leadership, amid political divisions ahead of the Knesset elections. And 24% of Israeli Jews Support a Two-State Solution. According to Tel Aviv University’s Peace Index survey of Israeli public opinion conducted on July 26-30, 2026, only 12% of Jewish respondents believe that negotiations will lead to peace in the coming years.

And 24% of the Jewish public support the two-state solution, but only 13% believe it has a chance of being achieved in the foreseeable future.

Ahead of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, Israel population is at 10,305,000, up 1.2% over last year with 182,000 babies born; and 24,000 new immigrants arrived, but emigration caused net migration loss of 8,000, the Israeli statistics bureau says. They include 7,828,000 Jews (78.3% of Israelis), 2,173,000 Arabs (21.7%), and 304,000 foreign nationals residing in the country. The Israeli population increased by 124,000 over the past year, representing a 1.2 percent growth.

During the past Jewish year, some 182,000 babies were born in Israel, and 50,000 people died. Migration led the population to lose some 8,000 people overall, the statistics showed.

Some 24,000 new immigrants moved to Israel, and around 4,000 others came as part of family reunification (when an Israeli citizen requests citizenship for their non-Israeli spouse or child), and some 21,000 Israelis living abroad returned. But at the same time, 57,000 Israelis left the country. Since the establishment of the state in 1948, 3.51 million people have immigrated to Israel.

Among Jews, a plurality of 36.9% are not religious, and another 21.8% consider themselves traditional but not very religious. Traditionally religious make up another 21.8%; Orthodox 12.4%; and ultra-Orthodox 11.5% the Israeli statistics bureau says.

Now Israel’s parties lock in their final Knesset lists, most polls show Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud, and the right is scrambling to hold its votes.

‘We lost 10 seats’: Netanyahu says to frighten people and struggles to find campaign strategy as Likud slips in polls. The conversations held by the prime minister indicated that he is skeptical of polls that show favorable results for him; and believes that the situation is worse than those surveys suggest.

There will be no peace until both Palestinians and Israelis declare the chant ‘From river to sea’ becomes an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, and not death, destruction, or hate. We can make it truly aspirational by making it focus on both peoples first, and the land second. “From river to sea Palestinians and Israelis should be freed of hatred and suffering by ‘two peaceful states for two peaceful peoples sharing the land peacefully.’”

Most Reform Rabbis support anti-Netanyahu groups in Israel. I do. Now I found TAL SCHNEIDER, a young Israeli woman, who writes on August 2, 2026 in The Times of Israel that a Jewish MK on the Muslim Ra’am’s slate could reshape the anti-Netanyahu coalition. Yoav Segalovitz, who has a good record of tackling crime in the Arab sector, is apparently being courted by Mansour Abbas’s Arab party. It could be a big boost to the anti-Netanyahu bloc.

Abbas placed Segalovitz on the slate, a highly sophisticated maneuver reflecting real political courage on both their parts. Segalovitz has maintained deep ties with Israel’s Arab public long after the broad “change government” — which his party and Ra’am were both part of — left office in 2022. Over the four years since, various community figures confirm he has consistently toured Arab towns hit hard by rampant violent crime, kept open lines of communication with local leaders, and remained actively involved in efforts to combat organized crime in the sector.

Segalovitz is a retired police major general — a rank equivalent to a major general in the IDF — who served as head of the Investigations and Intelligence Division from 2009 to 2013 and founded Lahav 433, the police’s elite anti-corruption and organized crime unit often dubbed “Israel’s FBI.” Yesh Atid declined to comment directly on Segalovitz’s potential move, though it must be said that no one has been caught off guard.

Another key question is whether Segalovitz will act as a “transitional object,” easing Ra’am into a change-bloc coalition by softening public opinion on the party’s ongoing evolution — even if such a move directly contradicts the campaign promises made by bloc leaders. Historically speaking, a political partnership between Segalovitz and Ra’am is not entirely unprecedented. Hadash, the Arab-Jewish communist alliance, has always reserved at least one slot on its slate for a Jewish representative. Bringing Segalovitz on board could not only boost Ra’am’s performance in the polls, but also move it into the anti-Netanyahu bloc.

All that remains is to see how Netanyahu responds once the next batch of polls is published, and whether he can somehow rein in the charging horse that is Ofer Winter after hurling so much political venom at him in recent weeks. Signs of revival of a left-leaning alliance is that it is now forecast to win 10 or 11 seats in the next Knesset, up from the four it currently holds.

The party experienced a significant resurgence in membership, reaching more than 112,000. About 88 percent of these members participated in the primaries, which, unlike those of most other parties, were conducted through open and democratic elections that selected an impressive and diverse slate of candidates. New polling shows Ra’am winning 2 more seats if Yesh Atid MK Segalovitz joins the Arab party.

Always remember that God tells us that only on Judgement Day will God tell each person whose religious and theological views are really true. (Qur’an 39: 46) “Say, “O Allah, Creator of heavens and earth, Knower of the unseen and the witnessed, You will judge between your servants concerning that over which they used to differ.” And the Qur’an states: “Then to your Lord shall you return, and He will inform you of that over which you differed.” (Qur’an 6: 164) And Qur’an 32: 25 states “Indeed, your Lord will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection concerning that over which they used to differ.”

I believe the Qur’an when it refers to Prophet Abraham as a community or a nation: “Abraham was a nation/community [Ummah]; dutiful to God, a monotheist [hanif], not one of the polytheists.” (16:120) If Prophet Abraham is an Ummah then fighting between the descendants of Prophets Ishmael and Isaac is a civil war and should always be avoided. “Lo yisa goy el goy kherev velo yilmedu od milkhama” “Nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaiah 2:4)

If all Arabs and Jews can live up to the ideal that ‘the descendants of Abraham’s sons should never make war against each other’ is the will of God; we will help fulfill the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah: “On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. Assyrians will go to Egypt, and Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the heart. The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.”…(Isaiah 19:23-5)