Can excluded Arabs determine the fate of Israel?

Amasya University Social and Strategic Research Center Lecturer Dr. Yusuf Bahadır Keskin wrote about the decisive role of Arab parties in the election process in Israel and the political balances in the government formation process for AA Analysis.

Israel goes to the polls on October 27, and the picture in this election may be slightly different from the past. According to the polls, both Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc and the opposition that wants to overthrow him are stuck with 52 seats each and cannot reach the majority of 61 seats on their own. The 12 seats that will upset the balance and pave the way for the new government belong to Arab parties that Israeli politics have not brought to the table for years.

There is a paradox about this choice; The Arab electorate is strong enough to determine who cannot form a government, but the unwritten rules of Israeli politics do not allow Arabs to decide who will form a government.

Arabs remaining in the occupied geography

During the Nakba that took place with the establishment of Israel in 1948, approximately 750 thousand Palestinians were exiled from their homeland. Approximately 150 thousand Arabs who remained within the borders of the occupation state became a minority in their own homeland overnight. They lived under Israeli control in every aspect of their lives, from freedom of travel to finding employment. Although Israel grants this population the right to citizenship, it has always viewed them as a security problem.

According to data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), approximately 2.2 million of the 10.3 million population consists of Arabs, which corresponds to 21 percent of the total population. Its share among voters is around 16-17 percent. There are two reasons for the difference: The first is the excess of the young population, and the second is that the majority of the approximately 350 thousand Palestinians in East Jerusalem, who are included in the official population data, are assigned the status of "permanent resident" instead of citizenship. Thus, while the majority of Arabs can vote in municipal elections, they cannot vote in Knesset elections. Still, the fact remains that roughly one in every six voters is Arab. The identity issue is still not resolved. Although the state calls this community "Israeli Arabs", a significant part of the society defines itself as "Palestinian Israeli citizens".

Exclusion and oppression

It is possible to see Israel's relationship with its Arab community most clearly through schools. Arab students can receive education in their own language, but the truth is that it is not as tolerant as it seems. The priority of the Arab Education Department, which was formed under the control of Jewish administrators for many years, was not pedagogical quality but to raise a politically passive and obedient minority. Symbols of national history and literature such as Palestinian history, Nakba and Mahmud Darwish were excluded from the curriculum; Added Jewish culture and Zionist narrative. Appointments of teachers and principals were subject to the secret approval of Shin Bet, and educators who did not hide their Palestinian identity were excluded from the system. Restrictions on vocational and technical education aim to create a dependency relationship that condemns Arab youth to the unqualified levels of the labor market.

It is possible to see this separation in the socioeconomic table. Arab settlements lag significantly behind the country average in poverty, employment and infrastructure indicators. The number one agenda of society is crime. The year 2025 was the bloodiest year on record for Arabs, with 252 murders, very few of which could be solved. As of September 2026, the number has reached 168. 71 percent of Arab citizens see "violence" as the top priority problem of society, and it is not a coincidence that this escalation coincides with Itamar Ben-Gvir's term as Minister of National Security. Mass protests against the rise in crime are one of the main sources of pressure pushing Arab parties to re-form a joint list.

Four parties, two strategies

Arab politics is distributed over a wide ideological spectrum through four main parties. Hadash, which also has Jewish members, is an Arab-Jewish left movement with communist origins. While Ahmed Tibi's party, Ta'al, represents a pragmatic Arab nationalism line, Balad is a Palestinian nationalist line that advocates Israel being a "state for all its citizens". Ra'am, on the other hand, is defined as a conservative-Islamist structure affiliated with the Southern Islamic Movement.

Arab parties largely agree on basic issues such as the two-state solution, opposition to the Nation-State Law and equal citizenship. The Joint List puts Palestinian national identity and the two-state solution at the center. The real difference is in strategy. Ra'am's leader, Mansur Abbas, broke new ground by joining the Bennett-Lapid government in 2021. Instead of identity politics, the party is based on receiving services and budget shares from within the system and prefers to be flexible in coalition negotiations. Abbas says Arab parties accept Israel's Jewish character as a political reality and even included former Deputy Minister of Homeland Security Yoav Segalovitz, a Jewish-Zionist candidate, on his list for the first time. Segalovitz, a former police general and Zionist, could serve as a "certificate of political viability" for Ra'am, as Abbas's main goal is not the number of votes but to increase his political value after the ballot box.

This is exactly why they cannot be a single list. In January, the four parties pledged to reunify amid grassroots pressure, but Abbas stayed away from the alliance in the hope of being invited into the next coalition as an independent. Although 82 percent of Arab voters are in favor of the joint list, Ra'am's calculation is different. If it remains in the Joint List, it will be part of the bloc to be "stayed away from" in the eyes of the Jewish parties, and if it stays apart, it may be the only Arab actor that can sit at the coalition table.

This strategic divergence between Ra'am and the Joint List lost its significance at the harshest moment of the campaign. The Israeli Central Electoral Board banned both lists from the election on September 23, but the Supreme Court unanimously overturned this decision on October 2. Balad leader Sami Abu Shehade had to withdraw from candidacy due to an article he wrote about Operation Aqsa Flood. This cycle, excluded by the political majority and brought back by the judiciary, shows that the limits of the political legitimacy of Arab citizens are still controversial.

The problem of Arab voters not going to the polls

The numbers reveal the power of Arab voters. In the latest polls, the two Arab lists seem to have reached a total of 12 seats, and in a scenario where the Netanyahu bloc and the opposition are locked in 52 seats each, Arab parties may gain critical importance. But the real key to this power is not the chair; participation. The turnout rate of Arab voters was 75 percent in 1999, fell to 44.6 percent in 2021, when Ra'am left the Joint List, and remained at 53.2 percent in 2022.

So, in such an atmosphere, why don't Arab voters go to the polls? First, there is widespread distrust, though not entirely valid reason, that even if they vote, no government will take their priorities into account and consider their representatives legitimate partners. Secondly, the division among Arab parties angers voters. Turnout may be around 53 percent, according to a May poll. If four parties could unite in a single list, this rate could rise to 67 percent. Thirdly, exclusionary language and disqualification attempts in the campaigns deepen alienation.

The day after the election

On the evening of October 27, Israeli politics may face a familiar impasse. The opposition needs Arab seats to oust Netanyahu, but Naftali Bennett says he will not work with Arab parties because they are not Zionist. Liberman, who is in the same government with Abbas in 2021, also does not see Ra'am as a partner this time. Public opinion is in the same line: 59 percent of Israelis do not support any Arab party being in a coalition.

In this case, four possibilities stand out. The first of these; Segalovitz's move works and Ra'am enters the coalition directly as in 2021. Second, the revival of the “blocking bloc” model of Arab parties that supported the Rabin government from outside in 1992. In this scenario, Ra'am could give a vote of confidence to a minority government led by Eisenkot without being in the coalition. Third, a new election brought about by a deadlock in which no bloc reaches 61. The fourth is that Netanyahu will form a broad national government by drawing center-right parties to his side and completely eliminating Arab parties.

Even if no one agrees to an alliance, the most important obstacle to the Netanyahu bloc reaching 61 is the Arab parties. It is necessary to see the real risky point correctly; In a society that votes but is not given a seat at the table, the feeling of "the ballot box is useless" deepens and participation may drop even further in the next election.

Result: 70 years of contradiction

Arab citizens are large enough to be decisive in the ballot box, but they are not seen as legitimate enough to sit at the government table. They will most likely not be the political force that determines the government in this election, but they have a chance to disrupt the government. The October 27 election will bring to light once again the 70-year-old contradiction of Arab politics in Israel.

The real question to be answered after the election is this; Will Israeli politics continue to see the votes of a community that makes up one-fifth of its population as a mere obstacle, or will it be able to consider them part of a legitimate partnership?