The election results have presented Israel with an apparent political conundrum. Netanyahu’s bloc emerged with 53 seats, while the opposition parties won 48. Neither comes close to the 61 needed for a parliamentary majority. The Arab parties won 19 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, giving them a potentially decisive role in determining the next government. Yet the prospect of their participation in that government has been met with considerable resistance.
This is misguided. In fact the electoral outcome offers Israeli leaders a perfect opportunity to pull the country back from the cliff it is quickly approaching.
Some commentators have celebrated the strong showing of Arab parties as evidence against the accusation that Israel is an apartheid state. There is a legitimate argument here, if we set aside the hard question of occupation and the different political and legal reality in the West Bank. Arab citizens of Israel have established political parties, campaigned, voted, and elected representatives in parliament. This election saw approximately 77% of eligible voters in Arab and Druze localities turn out, close to the national rate of 78%. The 19 seats won by the Joint List and Ra’am are an extraordinary expression of political inclusion.
The Arab parties have offered a way around this impasse: to support an Eisenkot-led government from outside the coalition. This is a significant concession. But it hardly hides the fact that Eisenkot would depend on Arab parties to survive.
Yet the same result exposes a darker side of Israel’s democracy. Arab citizens are permitted to participate in elections, and increasingly willing to exercise that right, but an unwritten rule shuts them out of governing coalitions. The distinction between being represented in parliament and being accepted as a partner in governing is increasingly hard to ignore, especially when the Jewish political leaders advocate it out loud.
The reasons for this exclusion cannot all be dismissed as racism. For many Jewish Israelis, the question is one of security. Should a Jewish majority trust representatives of a community with deep national and familial ties to the Palestinians to take decisions affecting its fate? Since October 7, when Israel’s existence and security have been openly challenged by its adversaries, including many Palestinians, these anxieties have increased. At present, the suspicion that Arab citizens might constitute a fifth column is deeply embedded in significant parts of Israeli society.
The Arab parties have offered a way around this impasse: to support an Eisenkot-led government from outside the coalition. This is a significant concession. But it hardly hides the fact that Eisenkot would depend on Arab parties to survive. If anyone fails to pay notice, Netanyahu and his allies would make sure they do.
Moreover, such an arrangement is inherently unstable. Arab parties would have to answer to constituencies expecting tangible improvements in their lives, and would inevitably seek payback in return for their parliamentary support.
Instead of this unstable, and rather hypocritical, arrangement, the anti-Netanyahu leaders can turn this apparent conundrum into an opportunity to build a durable political partnership with the Arab parties. This need not entail ignoring security concerns or pretending that Jewish and Arab citizens share the same narratives, political aspirations or understanding of the state. Between the exclusion of Arab representatives and putting them in charge of Israel’s security lies a wide variety of options. Security concerns can be addressed through clearly defined responsibilities and appropriate safeguards, allowing Arab members of the Knesset to join the government and play a greater role in running its affairs.
It is worth remembering that citizenship, like any relationship, is a two-way street. Arab citizens have demonstrated their willingness to participate in Israel’s political system against considerable odds. This is particularly significant after a war in which, many of them believe, Israel has committed genocide against their kin in Gaza. Their willingness to participate in the country’s electoral process under these circumstances shouldn’t be taken lightly. Accepting their outstretched hand would strengthen the argument that engagement with Israeli institutions is the right political path for all citizens.
Rather than seeking a romantic reconciliation, a political partnership can rest on mutual obligations, respect for democratic rules, and a shared interest in the country’s future.
Such a partnership doesn’t require agreement about the past. For a majority of Arab citizens, the establishment of Israel remains inseparable from the destruction of their communities and the loss of their national home. The subsequent military government imposed on them between 1948 and 1966, followed by decades of discrimination and marginalization, further shaped their relationship with the state. Expecting them to embrace the historical narrative of the Hebrew Republic, or to feel the same attachment to it as Jewish Israelis, is unrealistic. Social benefits and access to healthcare cannot erase this history. Nor should political partnership depend on pretending that it does not exist.
Rather than seeking a romantic reconciliation, a political partnership can rest on mutual obligations, respect for democratic rules, and a shared interest in the country’s future. Integration can happen when cooperation produces tangible benefits for all, gradually building confidence. Having Arab ministers responsible for education, infrastructure, health or finance, answerable for their performance like any other minister, would be a meaningful step in this direction. The test should be their conduct and their commitment to the rules of government, not an expectation that they sing “Hatikvah.”
It is also worth reminding that much of the taboo on including Arab parties in government has been cultivated and amplified by Netanyahu, who famously warned Jewish voters in 2015 that Arab voters were heading to the polling stations in droves and keeps emphasizing the mortal danger they represent to the state today – and to his continued grip on power. Yet Netanyahu himself explored political arrangements with Ra’am’s Mansour Abbas in 2015, who joined the government in 2021, as part of the Bennett-Lapid coalition. Even Yitzhak Rabin formed a government that relied on the support of Arab parliamentarians, back in 1992.
Breaking the unwritten rule of Arab exclusion will undoubtedly come at a cost. But the prospect of ending Netanyahu’s dominance, together with the unprecedented electoral strength of the Arab parties, is a powerful motive for paying that price. Leadership is often about accepting a cost today that would change the possibilities of tomorrow. Eisenkot has the opportunity to negotiate a partnership that acknowledges security concerns, gives Arab citizens a genuine stake in government, and restore the credibility of Israel’s democracy. A group of prominent Jewish figures in the Diaspora has recently appealed to Israel’s party leaders to form a government explicitly including parties representing Arab citizens. Israelis are understandably wary of advice from abroad, including from Diaspora Jews. But these signatories are hardly indifferent observers of Israel’s future. And they recognize that the country’s national character, and its global standing, are at stake.
Abe Eban famously observed once that the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. His observation was not wrong, just incomplete. For Israel, too, has a long record of missed opportunities: Sadat’s diplomatic initiatives in 1971 could have spared us the war of 1973, the Arab Summit Declaration at Fez in 1982 – an early version of the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 – could have transformed the region decades ago. Mahmoud Abbas’s appointment in 2003, and then again Salam Fayyad’s in 2007, both represented a Palestinian leadership committed to peaceful co-existence, institution-building, and reform. Faced with all these opportunities, and others, Israeli leaders managed, just like their Arab neighbors, to let them slip by. Today Israel faces another opportunity. It should be careful not to miss this one.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MBN’s editorial stance.
