Ahead of elections in Israel next week, Palestinian leaders in the country are urging the minority Arab community to vote in big numbers as they seek to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and topple the most right-wing government in the country’s history.
High turnout among Israel’s 21% Arab minority, whose members are of Palestinian heritage but hold Israeli citizenship, could influence the country’s complex coalition calculations in favour of an anti-Netanyahu alliance led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, Reuters reported.
“We can ensure the formation of a new government of change,” Mansour Abbas, an Islamist dentist-turned-politician who heads the United Arab List party, told Reuters in his office in Nazareth, Israel’s most populous Arab city.
According to Israeli pollsters, Arab voter turnout will be higher than in previous rounds of elections in 2022 and 2020. The Stat-Net Research Institute, based in an Arab Druze town near Haifa, projects turnout of 63%, compared with 56% in 2022, according to Reuters.
Polls show Eisenkot short of majority without Arab support
However, Abbas and other Arab leaders face a major hurdle in their bid to secure a role in a post-Netanyahu government. This is because Eisenkot has so far rejected the prospect of forming a coalition with the Arab parties favoured by most Palestinian Israelis, citing a lack of shared values.
But Abbas thinks there will be room for manoeuvre, perhaps after the vote, according to Reuters.
Opinion polls suggest Eisenkot’s patchwork bloc of centrist, right- and left-wing parties will get the most votes, but fall short of a majority, and will need Arab support, either as coalition partners or from outside, to prop up a minority government.
“We want to replace the right-wing government… to end the wars and these policies, to stop the expansion of settlements and to address the failure to stop settler attacks,” Abbas said.
“We also want a government that brings shared security and peace for Palestinians and Israelis.”
In a podcast this month, Eisenkot was seen sticking to his position. “I will not align myself with any Arab party,” he said, citing among other issues their refusal to label Hamas a terrorist organisation.
In case of deadlock, Netanyahu runs the govt
If no political bloc manages to form a stable government, Israel could face another period of political deadlock, potentially leading to fresh elections in 2027. Netanyahu would remain in power in the interim.
Netanyahu, however, appears to be taking the prospect of an alliance between Eisenkot and Arab parties seriously, or at least using it to galvanise his political base. His campaign has circulated doctored images and AI-generated videos portraying his rivals embracing Arab leaders, according to Reuters.
One fabricated video released over the summer depicts Eisenkot running across a meadow towards Abbas, who welcomes him with outstretched arms.
Abbas’s political career demonstrates that such partnerships are possible. In 2021, he became the first Arab Muslim politician to serve as a minister in an Israeli coalition government, joining an administration led by Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister who is now a right-wing member of Eisenkot’s bloc. However, that government collapsed after 18 months, partly because of disagreements between Bennett and Abbas over the occupied West Bank.
This time, Abbas says those differences could be set aside. In an unprecedented move aimed at winning the support of Jewish parties, he has given the second position on his electoral list to Yoav Segalovitz, a Jewish former police official.
“It sends a message of partnership with the Jewish community and with Jewish citizens,” Abbas said.
First election since Oct 7 attack
Israel’s election will be the first since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, and is being viewed as a referendum on the leadership of Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader.
Polls show Eisenkot’s bloc would win 52 of the Knesset’s 120 seats if elections were held today. Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist bloc would win 50 seats.
Abbas’ party is projected to win five seats, with a further eight going to the Joint List, a coalition of three Arab parties.
Ahead of the election, Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu’s far-right finance minister, proposed a plan to “Judaize” areas around Nazareth in northern Israel and in the south, where Arab communities are concentrated. He likened the initiative to Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, according to Reuters.
In Nazareth, party organizers hope to harness Arab voters’ anger towards Netanyahu, Smotrich and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, alongside growing frustration over rising crime in their communities.
Last week, according to Reuters, canvassers from Abbas’s party distributed campaign leaflets near Nazareth’s prominent Church of the Annunciation.
“There is a greater need this time than ever before to go out and vote in large numbers,” said Gassan Bsoul, a 74-year-old man approached by the canvassers. “The danger is greater than in the past,” he added.
Arab turnout expected to be high
While Abbas has sought to position his party to join a future government, leaders of the Joint List argue that they could exert comparable influence by remaining in opposition.
Ahmad Tibi, one of the Joint List’s leaders, said the alliance was prepared to act as an external support bloc to prevent the government from collapsing.
He added that the Joint List would support an Eisenkot-led government in a vote to establish an official commission of inquiry into the October 7 attacks, a key priority shared by the former military chief and his political partners.
“Our top priority is to remove the far-right government of Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir,” Tibi said.
(With inputs from Reuters)
