The kingmakers who could determine Israel’s election

Israel’s Arab-led and ultra-Orthodox parties face attacks but could hold the balance of power after October 27 vote. Save Share In the run-up to Israel’shigh-stakes election, few parties have featured more often in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attacks on rivals than Ra’am and the Joint List. Together, the two parties representing the Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up about 20 percent of the population, are projected to win 13 seats. If this is confirmed at the October 27 polls, the Arab-led lists could be critical to any post-election coalition, regardless of its political stripe. They have been here before. In 2021, Ra’am made history by becoming the first Arab party to enter an Israeli government after joining a broad coalition that briefly removed Netanyahu from power. Netanyahu had previously shown himself ready to negotiate terms for a potential governmentwith Mansour Abbas, the leader of Ra’am, or the United Arab List. But instead, Abbas joined forces with the coalition of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid to try to drive through some of themeasureshe had campaigned for. This time, both the Netanyahu camp and most leaders of the self-styled Zionist opposition bloc have ruled out forming a government with the parties representing Palestinian citizens. Still, Netanyahu and his allies have sought to portray their political opponents as beholden to the Arab-led lists, while the opposition has been attacking them for their reliance on the minority ultra-Orthodox parties to maintain their own power base. Opinion polls have consistently indicated that Netanyahu’s Likud party and the far-right coalition it leads are running neck-and-neck with the Zionist opposition bloc, with neither side on track to win an outright majority in the 120-strong Knesset. “Netanyahu would work with Ra’am in a heartbeat, if it meant staying in power,” said Yossi Mekelberg, a Middle East analyst at Chatham House. “The opposition, too, don’t seem to understand the consequences of their actions,” he said of repeated attempts across the opposition bloc to undermine the credibility of what may be a future plank in any government. “If it came down to it, of course they’d accept the support of the party they’d previously vilified without thinking of how that will undermine their government, and undermine the votes of the large numbers of Arab Israelis who support them,” added Mekelberg....