Israel has ‘historic’ opportunity to change direction, says leader of Arab coalition
Israel's main Palestinian coalition leader says the country faces a historic opportunity to change direction after elections, with Arab parties holding the balance of power to potentially oust Benjamin Netanyahu.
Yousef Jabareen, head of Israel's Joint List, has declared the country is facing a historic opportunity to change direction after Tuesday's elections. His coalition holds the balance of power with 19 seats, making Arab parties potential kingmakers in the 120-seat Knesset.
Arab Israeli voter turnout more than doubled to approximately 80%, transforming the political landscape. These Palestinians with Israeli citizenship represent 20% of the population, though those in the occupied West Bank and Gaza had no vote in the election.
Netanyahu loses majority
Netanyahu's coalition lost its majority, dropping from 68 to 53 seats. The Change bloc of Zionist parties led by retired general Gadi Eisenkot holds 48 seats, leaving the Arab-Israeli parties as potential kingmakers.
The Joint List secured 11 seats while the more conservative, Islamist Ra'am party won eight seats. Netanyahu's far-right government included controversial figures like national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich.
This has been an awful four years … in all areas of life: in terms of house demolition, criminal gangs within the Arab community without any [intervention] from the police; not allocating the needed resources for our municipalities, for our education, for our youth in general; racism in all areas of life – physical attacks against Arabs, the brutality of the police.
Arab coalition conditions
Jabareen stated the first demand of the roughly 840,000 Palestinian Israeli voters was to remove the Netanyahu government. The Joint List has no intention of joining an Eisenkot coalition but is ready to support it from the outside with tactical voting.
Eisenkot has put conditions on any potential coalition with Arab parties: they must recognize Israel as a Jewish state, accept conscription, and denounce Hamas as a terrorist organization. Ra'am has signaled it is ready to join such a coalition.
As long as the occupation of our people in the West Bank continues, we cannot be part of a government. However, in order to use our political power to get rid of the extreme Netanyahu government, we said that we will consider the possibility of supporting from outside.
Path to new government
Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, is due to summon political leaders as early as Wednesday to canvass recommendations on who should form the next government. No single grouping commands a clear majority, making negotiations complex.
The opposition could potentially use their 67-seat majority to wrest control of legislative power by changing the Knesset speaker and taking control of the committee that oversees the legislative agenda. Jabareen emphasized repealing laws that infringed on Israel's judiciary independence as a priority.
Jabareen expressed concern over Netanyahu's potential actions to maintain power, including allegations without evidence that Arab parties used Qatari funds illegally in the election campaign. He also warned against Netanyahu joining Donald Trump in resuming war with Iran as a pretext to delay political transition.
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