The Israeli opposition can still defeat Netanyahu — if it will accept the support of Israeli Arab political parties

Israel’s elections last week marked a critical turning point for the country, but not in the way its voters or the watching world expected.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could retain power even though opposition parties won enough seats to oust him. The anti-Bibi parties scored 67 members in the 120-seat parliament to the right-wing bloc’s 53.

Yet, the opposition will probably fail, because 19 of the opposition seats were won by Israeli Arab political parties — and two out of the four Jewish parties which comprise the formal opposition bloc refuse to accept Palestinian Arab lawmakers as legitimate political partners.

The historic Palestinian Arab turnout (about 80% of eligible Arab voters) was spurred by the desire to get rid of Netanyahu. Yet, he may retain power because Arab members of the Knesset are anathema to many Israeli Jews.

Ethnic Arab citizens comprise 21% of Israel’s population. They are descended from Palestinians who remained in the territory that was recognized by the United Nations as the state of Israel in 1947. Even though they have the right to vote alongside other rights denied to inhabitants of many Arab states, they have endured a long history of discrimination.

Netanyahu’s extreme-right minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir (who controls the federal police), has behaved viciously against Arab citizens within Israel, even as the government supported right-wing settler terrorism on the West Bank and destroyed much of Gaza in the wake of the Hamas terror attack in 2023.

Yet, many Israelis in the opposition recognize that righting relations with Arab citizens is a vital prelude to halting right-wing settler terror and to any negotiated solution for Gaza.

“We have no future here if we don’t stop being afraid, and if we don’t put an end to racism,” warned former Israeli Gen. Yair Golan on social media. A retired deputy chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Golan heads the The Democrats, the only party in the opposition bloc to demand a partnership with Arab parties in order to replace Netanyahu. He has been viciously (and falsely) accused of betraying Israelis, despite his widely acclaimed heroism in driving to Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, to rescue young Israelis under Hamas attack at the Nova music festival.

“The vote of an Israeli citizen casting a ballot in Tira [a Palestinian Arab town in Israel] is worth exactly the same as that of an Israeli citizen voting in Givat Shmuel,” Golan posted on X. “Anyone who tries to erase the votes of Arab citizens is surrendering to Netanyahu and giving up on Israel.”

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Still, Netanyahu, in full Trump-mode, is already claiming the Arabs “stole” the election, while his son Yair has posted on X that Arab citizens are Israel’s “greatest threat” beyond a nuclear Iran. Bibi’s fear-and-smear campaign against any politician who cooperates with Palestinian members of parliament may yet win the day.

The debate within the Israeli opposition over whether to lean on Arab support will play out in the next few weeks in a complex fashion. The first step is for Israeli President Chaim Herzog to consult with every party leader to ascertain whether the moderate opposition bloc or the far-right Bibi bloc has the majority of seats required to form a government.

In principle, Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israeli army chief who now heads the largest opposition party, Yashar, has the necessary seats overall. That’s because the two Arab parties are willing to support a minority government comprised of Jewish parties that depends on support from the Arab parties from the outside for critical issues.

However, Herzog prefers a national unity government, under which some opposition parties would join Bibi’s Likud bloc minus the two most extreme ministers, Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich who has encouraged the settler violence on the West Bank.

Yet, this would require opposition leaders to betray the voters whom they promised a government of change. And if the opposition refuses to join a national unity government, the most likely outcome is new elections months from now. During the interval, Netanyahu would remain prime minister, meaning the situation in the West Bank and Gaza would deteriorate further.

It would also mean a return to bombing Iran, which is likely to further roil the Mideast without solving the Iran nuclear problem or bringing regime change.

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Most tragically, it would end the chance for Israeli leaders to begin building a political partnership with Arab citizens of their country, which could eventually serve as a bridge to resolving the future of the West Bank and Gaza.

The smaller of the two Arab parties, Ra’am, with seven seats, was part of a government coalition. Its leader, Mansour Abbas, recognizes Israel as the Jewish homeland and is focused on improving domestic conditions for Palestinian citizens. The Democrat’s Golan would like to see his party included in a governing coalition.

Yet, whatever Abbas’s role, it would be a mistake to ignore the value of the support of the other Arab grouping (known as the Joint List) from outside Eisenkot’s coalition. That is true, despite the Joint List’s harder-line positions.

If Israel fails to integrate its Arab citizens into the political system after their incredible participation in a supposed democracy, it cannot expect them to sit passively by forever while they are denied their political rights.

“This is an incredible opportunity, which, if seized upon, will be transformative for generations,” I was told by Nimrod Novik, a fellow at the Israel Policy Forum and the former senior diplomatic adviser and special envoy to the late Prime Minister Shimon Peres. “For one thing, Israelis would get used to a new political and social reality by realizing that the Arab citizens truly comprise 20% of Israeli citizens. Nineteen seats is an enormous bloc. Israeli society has gotten used to inequality and discrimination by long practice.”

“If we miss this opportunity,” Novik continued, “it will send a message to the Arab minority that it won’t get what it deserves via politics. That could lead to violence.”

I asked him what he thought of the right wing’s arguments that involving the Arab parties would create a security risk. He noted that Arab politicians would not be part of the security cabinet.

Interestingly, a former Jewish deputy minister of police (the police in Israel are national, not local) named Yoav Segalovitz has joined Ra’am as second on the list to leader Abbas. Segalovitz wanted to signal his anger at the Israeli government’s deaf ear to Arab pleas for a police takedown of Mafia-style crime that has scarred Arab cities and towns. Instead, Minister Ben-Gvir, who oversees the police, has attacked law-abiding Arab citizens.

Segalovitz’s brave move is an indication of how the mood inside Israel could change if Eisenkot took up the challenge of cooperating with Arab parliament members — and could convince his coalition partners to sign on.

The alternative is probably a new election in which the opposition would get fewer seats, and Bibi would get another term — and in which Palestinians would give up on voting. That would be a tragedy not only for the Arab citizens of Israel but also for Israeli Jews.