Palestinian Parties Hold 12 to 15 Seats as Both Israeli Blocs Fall Short

Palestinian parties running in next week's Israeli election are projected to win between 12 and 15 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, a bloc large enough to decide which side forms a government. Polls cited in coverage of the campaign show Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition losing its majority, while the Jewish Israeli opposition also falls short of the 61 seats required to govern. The projected seats divide between the Islamist Ra'am party and the Joint List, an alliance of three smaller parties that includes Ta'al.

Campaigning reached Kfar Qasim this week, where candidates spoke over knafeh pastries and cardamom coffee at sunset. Palestinian citizens of Israel account for about 20% of the country's population. Ahmad Tibi, who heads Ta'al and has served in the Knesset for more than two decades, said high turnout in the Arab community is a tool for removing the current government. "We are determined to do everything in order to bring this government down," Tibi said.

Coalition arithmetic constrains both sides. Most of the Jewish Israeli opposition has ruled out governing with Arab politicians, and Netanyahu and his allies have treated any such arrangement as politically damaging, running campaign material with the phrases "It's [either] the right or Palestine" and "Bibi or Tibi." Israel has had two Palestinian ministers: Raleb Majadee, who held the sport portfolio for two years, and Issawi Frej, who handled regional coordination for just over a year. Prior promises to avoid Palestinian parties have lapsed before. In 2021, Ra'am leader Mansour Abbas joined a coalition with Naftali Bennett, now in the opposition bloc, and Netanyahu once held coalition talks with Abbas.

An agreement with the opposition would also carry costs for Palestinian politicians. None of its parties endorse a two-state solution, most oppose a Palestinian state, and most back settlement growth in the West Bank. Tibi described his choice as between Netanyahu, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir on one side and the opposition on the other: "It's between bad and worse."

Turnout is the contested variable. Sami Abu Shehadeh, leader of the Balad party, said fear is the main motive for voters. Last month, Israel's supreme court effectively removed Abu Shehadeh from the race over an article about the 7 October Hamas-led attacks, a ruling criticized for applying different speech standards to Jewish and Palestinian citizens; a motion to disqualify national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir over racist language, including calls for ethnic cleansing, was not upheld. Amjed Iraqi of the International Crisis Group said a returning far-right coalition would carry a renewed mandate on policies of ethnic cleansing and annexation, and described the vote as largely about mitigation.

Some Palestinians abstain from voting on principle. Haaretz journalist Nagham Zbeedat wrote that she refuses to "legitimize a system that treats my rights as favors." The election falls two days before Kafr Qassim marks the 1956 massacre in which border police killed 49 men, women and children who had broken a curfew they did not know about. "There's no clarity about what comes afterwards," Iraqi said, "but that's how powerless I think a lot of people feel."