Arab voter turnout could make or break Netanyahu in Israeli election

Israel’s Palestinian leaders are urging people in the minority Arab community to vote in large numbers in next week’s election as they seek to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and topple the most right-wing government in the country’s history.

High turnout by the 21 per cent Arab minority, who are Palestinian by heritage but Israeli by citizenship, could influence Israel’s complex coalition arithmetic in favour of an anti-Netanyahu bloc led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot.

“We can ensure the formation of a new government of change,” Mansour Abbas, an Islamist dentist-turned-politician who heads the United Arab List party, told Reuters in his office in Nazareth, Israel’s most populous Arab city.

Polls show Eisenkot short of majority without Arab support.

Abbas and other Arab leaders face one major obstacle to their goal of playing a role in any future administration without Netanyahu. Eisenkot has so far ruled out forming a government with the Arab parties that most Palestinian Israelis will vote for, citing a lack of shared values.

But Abbas believes there will be room for manoeuvre, perhaps after the vote, largely because of the realities of electoral arithmetic.

Opinion polls suggest Eisenkot’s coalition of centrist, right-wing and left-wing parties will win the most votes but fall short of a majority. It will need Arab support, either through coalition partnerships or from outside, to sustain a minority government.

“We want to replace the right-wing government… to end the wars and these policies, to stop the expansion of settlements and to address the failure to stop settler attacks,” Abbas said.

“We also want a government that brings shared security and peace for Palestinians and Israelis.”

For now, Eisenkot is maintaining his position.

“I will not align myself with any Arab party,” Eisenkot said in a podcast this month, citing, among other issues, their refusal to label Hamas a terrorist organisation.

If no bloc succeeds in forming a workable government, Israel could face a period of political deadlock followed by fresh elections in 2027, leaving Netanyahu in charge in the meantime.

Netanyahu, however, appears to be taking the possibility of an alliance between Eisenkot and Arab parties seriously, or at least sees it as an opportunity to rally his supporters.

His campaign has used doctored images and AI-generated videos depicting his rivals embracing Arab leaders.

One fabricated video released over the summer shows Eisenkot running through a meadow into the outstretched arms of Abbas.

Abbas’ political career demonstrates that such alliances are possible. In 2021, he became the first Arab Muslim to join an Israeli coalition government as a minister, serving in an administration led by Naftali Bennett, now a right-wing member of Eisenkot’s bloc.

That government collapsed after 18 months, partly because of disagreements between Bennett and Abbas over the occupied West Bank.

This time, Abbas said he could bridge those differences. In a bid to win over Jewish parties, he has taken the unprecedented step of giving the number two position on his party’s electoral list to a Jewish former police official, Yoav Segalovitz.

“It sends a message of partnership with the Jewish community and with Jewish citizens,” Abbas said.

Arabs frustrated with demonisation by Israeli right, crime.

Israel’s election will be the first since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack and is being viewed as a referendum on Netanyahu’s leadership. He is the country’s longest-serving leader.

Polls show Eisenkot’s bloc would win 52 seats in the 120-member Knesset if the election were held today, while Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist bloc would secure 50 seats.

Abbas’ party is projected to win five seats, while a further eight would go to the Joint List, a coalition of three Arab parties.

Ahead of the vote, Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu’s far-right finance minister, proposed a plan to “Judaise” areas around Nazareth in northern Israel and in the south, where most Arab citizens live. He described the proposal as similar to settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Party organisers in Nazareth hope to capitalise on Arab anger towards Netanyahu, Smotrich and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, as well as frustration over rising crime in their communities.

Last week, canvassers from Abbas’ party distributed flyers near Nazareth’s massive Church of the Annunciation.

“There is a greater need this time than ever before to go out and vote in large numbers,” said Gassan Bsoul, 74, one of the residents approached by the campaigners.

“The danger is greater than in the past,” he added.

Arab turnout expected to be high.

Israeli pollsters expect Arab voter turnout to exceed levels recorded in the 2022 and 2020 elections. The Stat-Net Research Institute, based in an Arab Druze town near Haifa, projects turnout of 63 per cent, compared with 56 per cent in 2022.

While Abbas has positioned his party to potentially join a government, leaders of the Joint List argue they could wield similar influence by remaining in opposition.

Ahmad Tibi, a Joint List leader, said his group was prepared to form “a preventive block to support (a government) from the outside.”

He said the Joint List would support an Eisenkot-led government in voting to establish an official commission of inquiry into the October 7 attack, a stated priority of the former military chief and his allies.

“We are placing as our top priority getting rid of the extreme right-wing government of Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir,” Tibi said.

Credit: Reuters