Arab parties on track to win record seats in Israel election, polls show

Record-breaking voter turnout in Palestinian-Israeli communities around 80 percent, early indicators show.

Yousef Jabareen of the Joint List party reacts to exit polls at the party election headquarters in Nazareth [Jamal Awad/Reuters]

Israel’s Arab parties are projected to win 19 seats in the Israeli parliament, exit polls indicate, after voting among Palestinian citizens of Israel surged to their highest levels in decades.

Exit polling data from Tuesday’s vote suggested that the leading Arab-led parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, could hold a record combined 19 seats in the 120-member Knesset.

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With more than one-third of votes counted, the Joint List was winning over 9 percent of votes. The opposition bloc led by former Israeli military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party was trailing the coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, though the votes were preliminary.

Polls estimated voter turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel at around 80 percent, historic numbers that break 1999 records, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Tuesday.

The leader of Ra’am, or the United Arab List, Mansour Abbas, said he hopes the final election results will allow the anti-Netanyahu bloc, including his party, to win the 61 seats required to form a government.

“With the numbers we have now, there is no government,” Abbas told Israel’s Channel 12 before preliminary votes began trickling in.

Abbas, whose Ra’am party currently holds five seats in the Knesset and joined the coalition that governed Israel from 2021 to 2022, added that both main blocs reached out to his party before and after the election.

‘Arabs can’t be kept outside’

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli ambassador, said creating a government might prove difficult for parties such as Eisenkot’s – which earlier exit polls had put narrowly ahead – because they promised not to form coalitions with Arab parties during the campaign.

“There’s a price to pay,” Pinkas said, because the “Arabs can’t be kept outside and only being considered and co-opted when you need their votes”.

He added that the Arab-led lists will make demands that a Jewish-led coalition government may not support.

Netanyahu and his far-right coalition made last-ditch efforts on Tuesday to get their supporters to the polls, warning of surging voter turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel , a tactic Arab politicians denounced as racist and inflammatory .

Cars flying Netanyahu’s Likud party flags drove through Jerusalem blaring the Islamic call to prayer and urging supporters to cast their ballots because “Arabs are voting”, witnesses said.

In social media posts, the embattled prime minister highlighted long queues at polling stations in Arab communities and published an image that he said showed Arab voters, including women wearing the niqab, a veil that covers the lower half of the face, waiting to vote.

“If we don’t wake up now, we’ll find ourselves with a government of Mansour Abbas and Ahmad Tibi,” he said, referring to two leading Palestinian members of the Knesset.

Overall voter turnout was also historic, reaching its highest level since 1999 with 77.7 percent casting ballots in Tuesday’s election, the Central Elections Committee reported. Palestinian citizens of Israel make up about 21 percent of the country’s population of 10 million and have traditionally voted at lower rates than Jewish Israelis.

‘Existential moment’

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, called the election “an existential moment for Palestinian-Israelis”.

She noted the record turnout among what has emerged as a key voting bloc, which drew “even [voters] who would usually boycott elections, who didn’t believe it would amount to any kind of influence, that it would change their reality, that it would alter the systemic discrimination that they face”.

The Knesset has passed more than 100 laws discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel, who also face discrimination in receiving state funds, Odeh said.

初步数据显示，巴勒斯坦裔以色列社区的投票率创下历史新高，约为 80%。

联合名单党候选人尤瑟夫·贾巴林在拿撒勒的党选举总部对出口民调结果作出反应。[贾迈勒·阿瓦德/路透社]

出口民调显示，以色列阿拉伯政党预计将在以色列议会中赢得 19 个席位，此前以色列巴勒斯坦公民的投票率飙升至数十年来的最高水平。

周二投票的出口民调数据显示，阿拉伯人领导的主要政党联合名单党和拉姆党可能在拥有 120 个席位的以色列议会中赢得创纪录的 19 个席位。

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名单中的第三位巴勒斯坦裔以色列公民可以投票，但不能指望改变现状。

在已统计超过三分之一的选票后，联合名单党获得了超过9%的选票。由前以色列国防军总参谋长加迪·艾森科特领导的亚沙尔党领导的反对派联盟落后于由总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡领导的利库德集团领导的执政联盟，尽管这些选票只是初步统计结果。

以色列第 12 频道周二报道称，民调估计以色列巴勒斯坦公民的投票率约为 80%，这一历史性数字打破了 1999 年的记录。

联合阿拉伯名单党（Ra'am）领导人曼苏尔·阿巴斯表示，他希望最终的选举结果能够让包括他所在的政党在内的反内塔尼亚胡阵营赢得组建政府所需的 61 个席位。

在初步投票结果开始陆续公布之前，阿巴斯告诉以色列第 12 频道：“以我们目前掌握的数字来看，政府无法成立。”

阿巴斯的拉姆党目前在以色列议会拥有五个席位，并加入了2021年至2022年执政的联合政府。他补充说，两大政治联盟在选举前后都与他的政党进行了接触。

“阿拉伯人不能被拒之门外”

以色列前大使阿隆·平卡斯在接受半岛电视台采访时表示，像艾森科特领导的政党这样的政党组建政府可能会很困难——此前的出口民调显示该党略微领先——因为他们在竞选期间承诺不会与阿拉伯政党组成联盟。

“这是要付出代价的，”平卡斯说，“不能把阿拉伯人排除在外，只有在需要他们的选票时才考虑和拉拢他们。”

他还补充说，阿拉伯人主导的名单提出的要求，犹太人主导的联合政府可能不会支持。

内塔尼亚胡及其极右翼联盟周二做出最后努力，试图动员其支持者前往投票站，并警告称以色列巴勒斯坦公民的投票率将激增。阿拉伯政客谴责这一策略是种族主义和煽动性的。

目击者称，悬挂着内塔尼亚胡利库德集团旗帜的汽车驶过耶路撒冷，播放着伊斯兰教的祈祷召唤，并敦促支持者投票，因为“阿拉伯人正在投票”。

在社交媒体帖子中，这位处境艰难的总理强调了阿拉伯社区投票站排起的长队，并发布了一张照片，称照片显示的是阿拉伯选民，其中包括戴着尼卡布（一种遮住脸部下半部分的面纱）的妇女，正在等待投票。

“如果我们现在不醒悟，我们将面临曼苏尔·阿巴斯和艾哈迈德·提比领导的政府，”他说道，这里指的是以色列议会的两名巴勒斯坦主要成员。

中央选举委员会报告称，总体投票率也创下历史新高，达到77.7%，为1999年以来的最高水平。以色列的巴勒斯坦公民约占该国1000万人口的21%，他们的投票率历来低于以色列犹太人。

“存在时刻”

半岛电视台记者努尔·奥德从被占领的约旦河西岸拉马拉报道说，这次选举是“巴勒斯坦以色列人的生死攸关时刻”。

她指出，这一关键投票群体的投票率创下纪录，甚至吸引了“通常会抵制选举、不相信选举会产生任何影响、不相信选举会改变他们的现实、不相信选举会改变他们所面临的系统性歧视的选民”。

奥德表示，以色列议会已经通过了 100 多项歧视以色列巴勒斯坦公民的法律，这些公民在获得国家资金方面也面临歧视。