Netanyahu’s coalition has lost its parliamentary majority, but the opposition faces an uncomfortable choice: accept the support of Arab parties it has historically resisted or risk allowing the Israeli prime minister to remain in power.
By Ephraim Agbo
Israel's latest election has produced a political dilemma that goes far beyond the question of who occupies the prime minister's office. Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition has lost its parliamentary majority, yet the parties seeking to replace him are struggling to agree on the political partners necessary to form an alternative government. At the centre of this contradiction are Arab political parties whose historic electoral gains have made them indispensable to the opposition's parliamentary calculations, while exposing the limits of political inclusion in a country where questions of Jewish national identity and Palestinian citizenship remain deeply contested.
The contradiction was brought into public view on October 31, when approximately 2,000 demonstrators gathered at Habima Square in Tel Aviv to demand the formation of a Jewish-Arab coalition government. Their message was directed particularly at opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot, whom they urged to cooperate with Arab political representatives to remove Netanyahu from office. For the demonstrators, the issue was not simply replacing a prime minister whose government they oppose. It was challenging a political culture in which Arab citizens can participate in elections, win parliamentary representation and influence the balance of power, yet encounter resistance when that influence must translate into participation in government.
One demonstrator described the campaign as a commitment to building a normal democracy in which Jewish and Arab citizens enjoy equal rights and are recognised as legitimate partners in the exercise of political power. Another suggested that Arab communities had extended an olive branch by demonstrating their willingness to participate in the democratic process alongside Jewish political groups. The demonstration, however, was accompanied by a counter-protest from Netanyahu supporters, some of whom rejected the prospect of a government dependent on Arab parties, describing such cooperation as unacceptable.
The competing demonstrations captured the central contradiction emerging from the election: Israel's opposition may possess the parliamentary numbers to remove Netanyahu, but it has yet to establish whether it possesses the political will to cooperate with the representatives whose support could make that possible.
The arithmetic of an electoral setback
The results of the October 27 election explain the importance of the Arab parties' performance. Netanyahu's Likud-led coalition secured 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, while the opposition bloc associated with Eisenkot won 48. The Arab-led parties, comprising the Joint List and Ra'am, secured a combined 19 seats. Neither of the two principal political blocs reached the 61 seats required to command a parliamentary majority.
On paper, the arithmetic offers the opposition a straightforward route to power. Combining its 48 seats with the 19 held by Arab parties would produce 67 seats, giving it a comfortable parliamentary majority. But this calculation assumes a degree of political cooperation that does not yet exist. Several Jewish-led opposition parties have previously rejected the possibility of forming a government with Arab representatives, meaning the numerical majority is not yet a functioning political alliance.
The significance of the Arab parties' performance extends beyond the immediate coalition negotiations. Their combined 19 seats represent an unprecedented level of parliamentary representation, reflecting a substantial increase in Arab voter participation. According to figures cited in reporting on the election, nearly 840,000 people voted for Ra'am and the Joint List, representing a 64 per cent increase compared with the previous election in 2022. The result has given Arab political representatives an unusually consequential position in determining Israel's next government.
For Netanyahu, the election represents a significant parliamentary setback, but not an immediate removal from office. His bloc remains the largest, and he continues as caretaker prime minister while the political negotiations unfold. His opponents, meanwhile, face the difficult task of transforming their collective electoral strength into a governing arrangement. The distinction matters: losing a majority does not automatically mean losing the premiership when the opposition cannot agree on a successor.
An opposition united by what it rejects
The difficulties confronting Eisenkot reflect a deeper problem within Israel's opposition politics. The parties seeking to replace Netanyahu do not necessarily share a coherent vision of the country they want to govern. Their common ground is largely built around opposition to his leadership, but their positions diverge considerably on settlements, Palestinian rights, national identity, security and the role of Arab citizens in government.
This became apparent in the broadcast's interview with Tomer Fella, an activist associated with the Young Democrats under Yair Golan. Fella argued that a new parliamentary majority could pursue institutional reforms, including establishing a state commission of inquiry into the security and political failures surrounding the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks. He also suggested that the opposition could use its parliamentary strength to introduce legislative measures aimed at preventing Netanyahu from continuing to seek office.
His argument reflects the belief that removing Netanyahu could create an opportunity to address institutional failures and restore public accountability. However, it also exposes the limitations of an opposition movement whose most immediate unifying objective is removing one political leader. Agreeing on who should leave office is considerably easier than agreeing on how a country should be governed afterwards.
The contradictions become more pronounced when the potential coalition partners' positions on the Palestinian question are examined. Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman have supported policies associated with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, positions that conflict with the political aspirations of Palestinian nationalist parties. Other opposition figures may be more open to cooperation with Arab representatives, but the bloc as a whole has not established a common position on the conditions under which such cooperation should occur.
Eisenkot therefore faces a difficult political calculation. Accepting Arab support could provide the parliamentary numbers needed to replace Netanyahu, but it could also alienate potential right-wing partners who have previously ruled out such an arrangement. Rejecting that support, however, would leave his bloc with 48 seats and no straightforward route to a majority. The election has placed the opposition in a position where its determination to remove Netanyahu must be measured against its willingness to reconsider political commitments made during the campaign.
Abu Shahadeh's proposition: Power without political surrender
The most revealing perspective in the broadcast came from Sami Abu Shahadeh, leader of the Palestinian nationalist Balad party, which contested the election as part of the Joint List. His argument challenged the assumption that Arab parties must become formal members of a government before they can contribute to political change. Rather than demanding ministerial positions, he suggested that they could support an alternative administration from outside the governing coalition, cooperating on specific parliamentary objectives while maintaining their political independence.
Abu Shahadeh argued that Netanyahu had effectively lost the election because the parties outside his governing bloc collectively possessed a parliamentary majority. The obstacle, in his assessment, was not the absence of numbers but the unwillingness of Eisenkot and other opposition figures to recognise Arab representatives as legitimate political partners. He identified racism as a central barrier to cooperation, arguing that political parties with different ideological positions should be able to negotiate around shared interests rather than treating every disagreement as grounds for exclusion.
His proposal was deliberately pragmatic. Arab parties could help change the leadership of the Knesset, support an investigation into the October 7 failures and cooperate on other institutional reforms without necessarily joining the government. Such an arrangement would allow the opposition to benefit from their parliamentary strength while avoiding the immediate complications of negotiating a comprehensive coalition agreement.
But this approach also exposes the limits of what the Arab parties might achieve. Supporting a government from outside it can provide parliamentary influence, but it does not guarantee control over policy decisions. Their ability to secure meaningful concessions would depend on the strength of their negotiating position and the willingness of the government to honour agreements. There is also the risk that their votes could be welcomed when politically useful while their wider demands for equality and Palestinian rights remain unaddressed.
Abu Shahadeh acknowledged that his party had substantial disagreements with Eisenkot and other opposition figures. He was particularly critical of the political language surrounding the proposed Zionist majority, arguing that it reflected an unwillingness to recognise Arab political participation as an equal component of democratic government. Nevertheless, he maintained that the immediate objective was to prevent Netanyahu and his coalition from continuing in office.
His position was not presented as an endorsement of the opposition's entire political programme. Rather, it was an acceptance that limited cooperation could be preferable to allowing existing political arrangements to continue unchanged. He described the choices facing Arab voters as a choice between bad and worse, particularly in the increasingly polarised atmosphere following October 7.
This is the uncomfortable compromise at the heart of the emerging political arrangement: Arab representatives are being asked to help establish an alternative government alongside parties whose positions on the Palestinian question may remain fundamentally opposed to their own.
Electoral fraud allegations and the politics of exclusion
The political tension surrounding Arab representation intensified after Netanyahu accused Arab parties of benefiting from electoral fraud and alleged that foreign funding had influenced their electoral gains. The allegations were rejected by Arab political leaders, who accused the prime minister of attempting to undermine their electoral legitimacy and inflame tensions within the country.
The distinction between investigating specific allegations and questioning an entire community's participation is important. Israeli election authorities indicated that the investigation into suspected interference was limited in scope and that there was no basis for claims of systematic manipulation of the election results. The final parliamentary figures remained intact.
The accusations nevertheless carry political significance because they emerged precisely when Arab votes became central to the formation of an alternative government. By questioning the legitimacy of their electoral success, Netanyahu's intervention risked deepening the perception among Arab citizens that their political participation is welcomed only when it does not threaten the existing distribution of power.
The reaction also illustrates how electoral competition in Israel increasingly intersects with questions of national identity and political legitimacy. The dispute is not simply about whether particular votes were properly cast. It is about whether Arab citizens can exercise their democratic rights and expect their representatives to be treated as legitimate participants in national political negotiations.
For a political system that presents itself as democratic, this is a consequential test. The right to vote is only one dimension of political participation. The ability to influence government formation and national policy is another. A democracy in which an entire section of the electorate is effectively excluded from political partnership faces a difficult question about the practical meaning of equal citizenship.
The Palestinian question that a coalition cannot escape
The divisions between Israel's Jewish-led opposition and Arab political parties are rooted in more than competing electoral interests. They reflect fundamentally different understandings of Israel's national identity, the status of Palestinians and the future of the occupied territories.
For Abu Shahadeh, political cooperation cannot be separated from questions of human rights, equality and the occupation. He argued that Israel and the Palestinians cannot escape the cycle of violence, war and revenge without confronting the political conditions that sustain it. His proposed alternative is based on freedom, justice and equality for Israelis and Palestinians, alongside an end to the occupation.
Such positions are difficult to reconcile with the policies of several potential coalition partners, particularly those who support settlement expansion in the West Bank. The disagreements are not simply tactical differences that can be postponed indefinitely. They concern the future political and territorial arrangements between Israelis and Palestinians.
Yet the immediate coalition negotiations may not require these disagreements to be resolved. Parties can cooperate on institutional accountability, parliamentary leadership and other specific matters without reaching agreement on every aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The question is whether such limited cooperation can become a foundation for more meaningful political inclusion or whether it will remain an arrangement driven exclusively by the desire to remove Netanyahu.
Israel has experienced a precedent for Arab participation in government. In 2021, Mansour Abbas's Ra'am party joined the coalition led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, becoming the first independent Arab-led party to participate in an Israeli governing coalition. That experience demonstrated that cooperation across longstanding political divisions was possible, although the government was short-lived and did not resolve the fundamental disagreements surrounding Palestinian rights, settlements and national identity.
The present political environment is considerably more polarised. The October 7 attacks, the subsequent war in Gaza and continuing regional security tensions have intensified disagreements over the meaning of national security and the legitimacy of Palestinian political demands. These circumstances make cooperation more politically sensitive, but they also make the question of political inclusion more difficult to avoid.
Netanyahu's remaining options
Despite losing his parliamentary majority, Netanyahu is not without political options. His bloc remains the largest, and his opponents have not yet demonstrated that they can agree on a government. A broader unity arrangement involving some of the opposition parties is another possibility, although such an arrangement would raise difficult questions about leadership, ministerial distribution and the future direction of government policy.
Netanyahu also has an incentive to exploit the divisions within the opposition. If Eisenkot cannot persuade his potential partners to accept Arab parliamentary support, the opposition's collective 67 seats may remain a numerical advantage without a practical governing arrangement. This could give Netanyahu additional room to negotiate with political figures who might otherwise have preferred to replace him.
The alternative is a prolonged political deadlock, potentially leading to another election if government formation fails. Neither outcome is inevitable, but both demonstrate why the election result cannot be interpreted as a straightforward transfer of political power.
The opposition's challenge is therefore twofold. It must negotiate a viable parliamentary arrangement while deciding whether its commitment to replacing Netanyahu is strong enough to overcome its disagreements about Arab political participation. The Arab parties, in turn, must determine whether supporting an alternative government from outside the coalition would deliver meaningful political influence or simply provide the votes needed to establish another administration.
Beyond Netanyahu: The test of Israeli democracy
Israel's latest election has exposed a contradiction that extends beyond the immediate contest for the premiership. Arab citizens have demonstrated their capacity to influence national politics through electoral participation, but the political establishment remains divided over whether their representatives should be accepted as equal partners in determining who governs.
The 19 Arab seats have therefore become more than a parliamentary statistic. They represent the political influence of a substantial section of Israeli society whose participation has acquired decisive importance at a moment of national political uncertainty.
For Abu Shahadeh and other advocates of Jewish-Arab cooperation, the immediate objective is not necessarily to achieve a comprehensive political settlement. It is to establish that democratic representation must carry consequences beyond the ballot box. If Arab parties can participate in elections but are denied meaningful political influence whenever their support becomes decisive, the promise of equal citizenship remains incomplete.
However, the responsibility for resolving this contradiction does not rest on Arab political representatives alone. Eisenkot and his allies must confront the implications of their own political commitments. They cannot simultaneously seek Arab parliamentary support and refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the political interests those representatives are elected to advance.
The election has created an opening, but it has not yet produced a new political settlement. Netanyahu's opponents must decide whether they are prepared to build an alternative government across ideological divisions or whether their disagreements will preserve the political relevance of a prime minister whose coalition has lost its majority.
The question facing Israel is therefore larger than whether Netanyahu can be removed from office. It is whether the country's political system can move beyond a model in which Arab citizens are counted when their votes are needed but their representatives are treated as unacceptable when political power is being distributed.
Israel may have voted for political change, but the struggle over who is entitled to deliver that change has only just begun.
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