The Fateful Choice Facing Israel’s Opposition

If polls are to be believed – and in Israel, that is always a big if – the October 27 election will not make the establishment of viable government an easy task.

By any standard, Israeli politics is byzantine.  Elections are much more than a horse race between the two leading parties.

As a proportional representation democracy, seats in the 120-seat Knesset (parliament) are apportioned according to the number of votes a party receives.  There is no direct election of the Prime Minister nor of any Knesset member.  Contrary to Tip O’Neill’s dictum that “all politics is local”, in Israel, there are no localized constituencies in Knesset elections.

A government is usually formed by assembling a coalition of 61+ seats in the Knesset – a majority. It is also possible to create a minority government – wherein a party stays outside the government coalition but agrees not to oppose the government on key votes, giving it an effective working majority.  This may prove critical in 2026.

The minimum threshold for a party to enter the Knesset is 3.25% – roughly four Knesset seats.  If a party gets only 3.24% of the vote, they do not enter the Knesset and those votes are lost (a major factor in the 2022 election – Meretz had 3.16% of the vote and Balad ran separately from the Joint list and had 2.91% – neither party entered the Knesset and over 6% of the vote was lost).   There are currently 13 parties in the Knesset and the governing coalition consists of 5 parties.  12-13 parties could again be part of the next Knesset.

In most every poll (except for Netanyahu affiliated media) the mainstream opposition Jewish/Zionist parties (Change Bloc) will take between 50 and 55 seats.  The Netanyahu bloc hovers between 49 and 52.  The mathematicians among you will note that in no configuration does the total add up to 120 or the 61 needed to form a majority coalition.

The remaining 16-19 seats are:  the Reservist Party projected at 4 seats – if it crosses the electoral threshold – and Arab parties:  Ra’am (the United Arab List) – projected at 5-6 seats and the Joint List (an alliance of Hadash, Ta’al and Balad) projected at 7-9 seats.

The opposition “Change Bloc” – currently Yashar, Beyachad, the Democrats and Yisrael Beiteinu (four rather disparate parties) will need the support of the Reservists party if it passes the threshold.  But that will not be sufficient for a 61-seat Knesset majority.

Most Change Bloc parties have vowed to form a government with only Zionist parties – though the head of Yashar, Gadi Eisenkot – a former IDF chief of staff and presumptive leader of the Change Bloc, has left himself some room for maneuver.  So, what options does the Change Bloc have?

A “Zionist only” coalition requires the exclusion of both the ultra-orthodox parties and the Israeli Arab parties.

A Change Bloc – Haredi coalition is a non-starter. All Change Bloc parties and the Reservists oppose the main Haredi requirements: blanket draft exemption, separate schools that don’t teach secular subjects (e.g. math, science and English), and family subsidies that the secular community doesn’t receive.

The Change Bloc has three primary options.

1. form a coalition with at least one Israeli Arab party; Ra’am is the logical choice but objections abound.
2. form a minority government – relying on the Israeli Arab parties not to vote against the bloc in the Knesset on major issues – i.e. the Israeli Arab parties would provide a “safety net” yet not be members of the coalition – giving the government a “working majority”; That has been done before.  Though a minority government is inherently unstable, it is a real possibility.   Will it be acceptable ?
3. Go to new elections sometime in spring 2027 – reminiscent of 2019 to 2021, when Israel held five elections inside of four years.  This would be the worst outcome.

If new elections are called before a new government is sworn in, the Netanyahu government would remain in place – even though the new Knesset should be seated November 10.

A Netanyahu government – without a legislative majority portends neither stability nor moderation.  It portends continued rampant lawlessness by the Netanyahu coalition and would create an executive versus legislature showdown (and multiple applications to the Supreme Court sitting as the High Court of Justice).

This option should be dismissed by the Change Bloc from the outset. New elections will likely become necessary, but it is critical for the Change Bloc to swear in a new government first – then it would become the caretaker government – with a working Knesset majority – pending new elections!

The obstacles to Israeli Arab participation in a government coalition are different than those of the Haredim. Israeli Jewish xenophobia deepened after the October 7 Hamas Massacre and the fears stemming from the 2021 mixed-city riots – despite the fact that Israelis and Israeli Arabs interact daily, in pharmacies, stores, and hospitals (both nurses and doctors)  in most cities and towns, not just mixed cities like Haifa.

Israeli Arabs (Arabs who remained in Israel after the 1948 war – not the West Bank or Gaza) are  21% of the Israeli population.  The Israeli Arab political parties account for between 12-15 of the 120 Knesset seats.  Representation is less than population size because voter turn-out is decidedly lower than Jewish Israelis; and many Israeli Arabs do not vote for Arab parties but for mainstream Zionist parties.  Israeli Arabs are also elected to the Knesset in mainstream parties.

In 2021, Ra’am (the United Arab List), leader Mansour Abbas recognized Israel as the Jewish state and, in a first, sat as a member of the coalition in the short-lived Bennett-Lapid government from June 2021 to December 2022.

To further bolster Ra’am as a coalition partner, in August, Jewish Israeli Yoav Segalovitz, a former high ranking police officer with deep experience in the Arab sector and as a Deputy Minister for National Security joined Ra’am as number two on the party list.   In theory, Ra’am should be a viable coalition partner.

The second (and largest) major Arab party is the Joint List – with three disparate parties and   members who are an anathema to many Jewish Israelis.  Nonetheless, the Joint List announced recently that it would be willing to support a non-Netanyahu coalition from outside the government.  Will this be acceptable to the Change Bloc and would Ra’am agree to participate in the “safety net” if they are refused a place in the Coalition?

Ultimately, the Change Bloc will have to answer the following question. Do they prefer to allow Netanyahu to remain in government until the next election and possibly beyond. Or, do they make a deal of sorts with 21% of  Israel’s population.