For years, many Palestinian citizens of Israel stayed away from elections, convinced there was little to gain from the politics of a state they say marginalizes their communities and oppresses fellow Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Last month, that pattern broke. Arab voters went to the polls in record numbers, helping strip Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, described as the most far-right in Israel's history, of its majority.
Neither Netanyahu's coalition nor the center-right opposition led by his main challenger, Gadi Eisenkot, reached the 61 seats needed to form a government. Arab-led parties won 19 of the 120 seats in parliament, giving them a critical role in the negotiations over who will govern the country at a turbulent moment.
"We blocked the government of Netanyahu from continuing," said Jamal Zahalka, chairman of the High Follow-Up Committee, the main umbrella body representing Palestinian citizens of Israel. "It's a historical achievement. I think our community found its strength."
Two days after the election, hundreds gathered at a park in the Palestinian-majority town of Kufr Qasim for the annual commemoration of residents shot dead by Israeli border police in 1956, on the opening day of the Suez Crisis. "And today we stand here, 70 years later," the speaker told the crowd from a podium. "And the story still isn't over." Attendees, many dressed in black and some wearing the keffiyeh, mourned not only those killed decades ago but also present-day suffering: the sharp rise in discrimination against Arab communities in Israel since the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 people were killed; the war in Gaza that has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians; and the actions of Netanyahu's government in the occupied West Bank, where rights groups and the United Nations say it has armed and backed settlers forcing Palestinians from homes and farmland with unprecedented violence.
Residents of Kufr Qasim told NPR that worsening rights inside Israel drove the surge in voting. "There is no freedom anymore," said Intisar Sarsur, 65, sitting with relatives beside an olive tree. "We are seeking for our basic rights as human beings." She said everyone she knew voted, adding: "Not one person stayed home." Her family shared platters of mutabbaq, a sweet layered pastry, and freshly pressed olive oil from this year's harvest, a usually joyous occasion she said now felt bittersweet, as the West Bank harvest was marred by frequent settler attacks.
Palestinian citizens of Israel, descendants of those who remained when the state was established in 1948, now make up about 20% of the population. Arab-led parties received 64% more votes than in the last election, according to the Central Elections Committee. Those gains have stirred anger and fear among many on Israel's political right, who view the parties as a threat to the country's Jewish character.
Netanyahu and his allies seized on the high Arab turnout as a rallying cry. On election day, Netanyahu posted a video calling it an "emergency," and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir filmed an appeal at the entrance to Kufr Qasim, urging voters: "If you want this country to remain Jewish and Zionist .. then get out and vote!" As results came in, Netanyahu's Likud party claimed Arab parties had "stolen" the election through bribery, threats and forgery, and warned of a foreign takeover of the Knesset and the "Islamization of Israel." The party has made no evidence public. Police said they found no basis for the claims, and election officials said there was no widespread fraud. The head of the elections committee separately asked the Shin Bet security service to investigate suspected foreign funding of efforts to boost Arab turnout, but he and the attorney general said the vote was conducted properly and the results were not compromised.
The messaging from Netanyahu's bloc is widely seen as an attempt to stop Eisenkot from partnering with Arab parties, a move that would give him the majority he needs. The rise in anti-Arab sentiment since the Oct. 7 attacks has made such an alliance politically risky, potentially splitting Jewish right-wing members of his bloc. Eisenkot is also not a natural partner: a former military chief of staff whose son was killed fighting in Gaza, he served as an observer in Netanyahu's war cabinet early in the war and is credited with formulating the "Dahiyeh doctrine," laid out in 2008, which calls for using "disproportionate force" against villages from which militants fire on Israel.
Arab parties are themselves divided over how to use their new power. Ra'am, a socially conservative Islamist party, campaigned on joining a governing coalition and placed a Jewish former police official second on its list. The Joint List alliance, which won 11 of the 19 Arab-led seats, has ruled out formally partnering with Eisenkot for now, citing the ongoing war in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, though its leaders say they could support his government from the outside.
President Isaac Herzog has been consulting party leaders and is expected to announce next week which candidate will receive the mandate to form a coalition. That candidate will have 28 days, with a possible two-week extension. Failure would hand another candidate 28 days without an extension, and if no government emerges, repeat elections will be held next year. In Kufr Qasim, Mansour Shaaban, 33, said this was the first election in which he had voted, and that he would do so again "in an instant" to resist what he called the racism and oppression of Israel's extreme right. "Even if we don't succeed to create change this time," he said, right-wing politicians now know Palestinian citizens have found their voice. Nuha Musleh contributed to this report.
