The turnout has given the two main electoral lists representing Palestinian citizens of Israel \u2013 the United Arab List (Ra\u2019am) and the Joint List \u2013 a combined 19 seats in the 120-member parliament, potentially giving them a decisive role in determining who forms the next government.<\/p>\n
However, rather than acknowledge that groundswell of support, Israel\u2019s leading politicians have sought to either delegitimise their vote \u2013 attributing it to foreign interference \u2013 or somehow cast Palestinians exercising their democratic right as an \u201cattempt to steal the election\u201d.<\/p>\n
Arab votes don\u2019t count<\/p>\n
Framing the result as a bid to secure the \u201cIslamisation of Israel\u201d, Netanyahu\u2019s ruling Likud party has gone so far as to call on Israel\u2019s internal security service, the Shin Bet, to investigate the possibility of foreign election interference into the large-scale Palestinian turnout. In doing so, they appear to have thrown the legitimacy of the Arab vote into question and tainted any future attempt by the opposition to ally with the Arab parties.<\/p>\n
Despite denouncing Netanyahu\u2019s government as corrupt, incompetent and damaging to Israel\u2019s international standing, much of Israel\u2019s Jewish-led opposition has remained reluctant to embrace the support of Palestinian parties to remove him from power.<\/p>\n
The left-wing Democrats have been the likeliest to cooperate with the Palestinian parties, while other opposition figures have either resisted such an alliance or stopped short of rejecting allegations that foreign actors helped engineer the surge in Palestinian voter turnout.<\/p>\n
![\"Yousef](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/afp_6ae11c9b760b-1793137819.jpg\")
Yousef Jabareen, leader of Israel\u2019s Joint List political alliance, centre-left, and other members cheer at the alliance\u2019s campaign headquarters in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth on October 27, 2026 [AFP]<\/p>\n
On election night, former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid ruled out sitting alongside Palestinian parties in government, despite having relied on their support during their brief 2021\u201322 government.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, another leading member of the opposition, Avigdor Lieberman, the hard-right leader of Yisrael Beytenu, also ruled out forming a coalition with Palestinian parties. He said he would sit alongside \u201cneither Bibi nor Tibi\u201d, using Netanyahu\u2019s established nickname and invoking Ahmad Tibi, leader of the Ta\u2019al party \u2013 part of the Joint List \u2013 as a stand-in for the wider Palestinian bloc.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was clear from campaigning that there was going to be a large turnout,\u201d said Orly Noy, who stood for the Palestinian-dominated Balad party. \u201cThe [governing] coalition had shown there were no red lines in Gaza and Palestinians in Israel sensed they might be next. People also just couldn\u2019t face another term of soaring crime and a police force headed by [far-right National Security Minister] Itamar Ben-Gvir.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat few rights Palestinians had have been slipping away since October 7. The last tool they had in their toolbox \u2013 the only thing they had that was equal to everyone else \u2013 was their vote, so they used that in massive numbers, but even that now seems to be being undermined and delegitimised,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
With all ballots counted, the pro-Netanyahu bloc has 53 seats, while the anti-Netanyahu Jewish opposition bloc has 48. However, with the 19 seats held by Palestinian parties, the majority in parliament is against Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are the opposition and the press even thinking of this as a three-way split? In any other rational democracy, people would be framing this as an overwhelming victory for the opposition and a rejection of Netanyahu, but we\u2019re not doing that,\u201d Noy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead, we\u2019re hearing elements of the opposition talking about joining with Netanyahu in some kind of National Unity government. That\u2019s both a measure of how racist these parties are, when they won\u2019t align with Arabs to form a majority, as well as how profoundly undemocratic they are,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Different visions<\/p>\n
Political differences do exist between an opposition that deliberately frames itself as Zionist and a Palestinian minority whose claim to equal national and civic rights is seen by some as a rejection of that. But underlying that disagreement is a fundamentally different vision of Israel\u2019s future, according to political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg.<\/p>\n