Until recently, I supported the idea of creating a joint list for the Arab parties. I assumed that it would reduce the number of seats held by the other parties, hurt both blocs equally, and that if the list increased voter turnout and produced 16, perhaps even 17 seats for Arab society, it would be worth it. No one would be able to ignore that kind of political power, and it would inevitably affect the way any government operates.
One thing changed my mind. The leading pollster in Arab society is Yousef Maklada, and his data consistently indicate that forming a joint list would hurt the bloc opposed to Benjamin Netanyahu more. First, a joint list would absorb Arab voters who intended to vote for Zionist parties, particularly Yair Golan. If we can currently speak of around 30,000 Arab voters for Yair Golan, with the potential to increase that number, a joint list would eliminate the vast majority of those votes. Votes that are 100 percent within the potential coalition would become votes outside the coalition.
More importantly, according to Maklada, the creation of a joint list would drive away right-wing voters who intend to vote for the bloc opposed to Netanyahu. I argued with him about this finding quite a bit. I wondered whether voters whom nothing had managed to push back into the Netanyahu bloc would really switch sides simply because a joint list had been formed. Maklada answered yes: “That’s what the numbers show, and the findings are unequivocal.”
When a joint list is formed, Arab representation becomes stronger and more significant, but the anti-Netanyahu bloc could fall to around 50–52 seats. At that point, there is no chance of forming a coalition. One of two things would happen: either Netanyahu would remain in power and call another election while serving as head of a transitional government, or enormous pressure would be placed on Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman, and Gadi Eisenkot to form some kind of government with Netanyahu.
It is a depressing conclusion, one that surrenders to the deep currents of racism in Israeli society. There is no reason why the Arab parties should not be legitimate partners in a coalition. Opposition among most of them to such a move—which was once very widespread—has almost completely faded.
Ayman Odeh and Ahmad Tibi are still trying to rewrite history and make the public forget their contribution to bringing down the change government. There is also something positive about the denial: it reflects an understanding that this mistake must not be repeated. In general, the behavior of Arab leaders and Arab society since October 7 has been the embodiment of all the nightmares of Itamar Ben-Gvir and his allies. In the past, I described the discreet group around Ben-Gvir and his advisers in the days after October 7. You could sense their expectation that Israel’s Arab citizens would finally join in. The head of the Operations Division of the Israel Police at the time, Superintendent Sigal Bar-Tzvi, described how the police had already begun preparing for such a scenario. Nothing happened.
It is neither fair nor free of racism, but bringing down the Netanyahu government is a dramatic existential necessity, one that is worth sacrificing three or four seats held by the Arab parties. Especially if Golan knows how to appeal to this public effectively and win more than a single seat’s worth of support from it.
It is also an almost impossible argument to make to Arab public opinion. How can you sell an argument that says: We want you to be smaller in order to win? Perhaps the right way to phrase it is: smaller, but far more influential. Seventeen seats outside the coalition are worth less in terms of influence than six seats inside the coalition.
And as lawyers like to put it, in the alternative to the alternative: if a joint list is formed, Mansour Abbas should head it, and it should announce that it is not ruling out joining a coalition, at least in an attempt to reduce the defection of right-wing voters.