‘Arab voice doesn’t count’: Jewish Israeli blocs reject Palestinian support

Palestinian voters could decide Israel’s future, but its political class refuses to accept their mandate.

Supporters of Israel's Palestinian-led Joint List political alliance cheer at the alliance's campaign headquarters in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth on October 27, 2026 [AFP]

Few certainties have emerged from Israel’s parliamentary elections. The diverse coalition of Israel’s self-styled ‘Zionist’ opposition remains short of a majority. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud appears to be the largest party, but its electoral bloc has not secured enough seats to form a government.

What is not in doubt, however, is the surge in turnout from Palestinian citizens of Israel, which has established Arab parties as a pivotal bloc in the parliament, potentially one able to determine which of the rival camps forms a government, if either is willing to work with them.

list 1 of 4 Israel’s election: The battle between change and anti-Palestinian sentiment

list 2 of 4 Balad leader blasts ‘racist’ exclusion of Arab parties in Israel

list 3 of 4 What are the implications of Israel’s elections?

list 4 of 4 Israel’s election rhetoric: Anti-Palestinian, bombastic, fear-mongering

Anger over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, and what analysts have described as the overt racism of its governing coalition helped drive Palestinian citizens of Israel to the polls in large numbers.

An estimated 80 percent of eligible Palestinian voters in Israel turned out for Tuesday’s election, marking a surge in participation by a community that accounts for about 21 percent of the population.

The turnout has given the two main electoral lists representing Palestinian citizens of Israel – the United Arab List (Ra’am) and the Joint List – a combined 19 seats in the 120-member parliament, potentially giving them a decisive role in determining who forms the next government.

However, rather than acknowledge that groundswell of support, Israel’s leading politicians have sought to either delegitimise their vote – attributing it to foreign interference – or somehow cast Palestinians exercising their democratic right as an “attempt to steal the election”.

Arab votes don’t count

Framing the result as a bid to secure the “Islamisation of Israel”, Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party has gone so far as to call on Israel’s 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.

Despite denouncing Netanyahu’s government as corrupt, incompetent and damaging to Israel’s international standing, much of Israel’s Jewish-led opposition has remained reluctant to embrace the support of Palestinian parties to remove him from power.

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.

Yousef Jabareen, leader of Israel’s Joint List political alliance, centre-left, and other members cheer at the alliance’s campaign headquarters in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth on October 27, 2026 [AFP]

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 2021–22 government.

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 “neither Bibi nor Tibi”, using Netanyahu’s established nickname and invoking Ahmad Tibi, leader of the Ta’al party – part of the Joint List – as a stand-in for the wider Palestinian bloc.

“It was clear from campaigning that there was going to be a large turnout,” said Orly Noy, who stood for the Palestinian-dominated Balad party. “The [governing] coalition had shown there were no red lines in Gaza and Palestinians in Israel sensed they might be next. People also just couldn’t face another term of soaring crime and a police force headed by [far-right National Security Minister] Itamar Ben-Gvir.”

“What few rights Palestinians had have been slipping away since October 7. The last tool they had in their toolbox – the only thing they had that was equal to everyone else – was their vote, so they used that in massive numbers, but even that now seems to be being undermined and delegitimised,” she said.

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.

“Why 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’re not doing that,” Noy said.

“Instead, we’re hearing elements of the opposition talking about joining with Netanyahu in some kind of National Unity government. That’s both a measure of how racist these parties are, when they won’t align with Arabs to form a majority, as well as how profoundly undemocratic they are,” she said.

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’s future, according to political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg.

“Given that much of Israel’s mainstream politics rests on the assumption of Jewish supremacy, I think it’s understandable that the Arab vote is seen as a challenge,” he said of a sentiment that many argue has been state policy since the 2018 Nation State Law , which enshrined the right to national self-determination as exclusive to Jewish people.

“There are very different ideas at play of what it means to be a citizen of Israel and of how Israel should be governed and for whose benefit,” he said. “These are fundamental differences, of course they are, but they can’t disguise the racism underpinning all.”

“They want to form a government with only Jewish voices,” said Mauricio Lapchik, Hebrew campaign director for the Joint List. “If the numbers of these results were in a different country, in a democratic country, I think it would be crazy to think that they will not be able to say that they won the elections, having this majority. But only in Israel, because the voice of the Arabs do not count as the voice of the Jews, we cannot talk about a victory.”

巴勒斯坦选民可以决定以色列的未来，但以色列的政治阶层拒绝接受他们的授权。

2026年10月27日，在以色列北部城市拿撒勒，以色列巴勒斯坦人领导的联合名单政治联盟的支持者在该联盟的竞选总部欢呼。[法新社]

以色列议会选举结果尚无定论。由以色列自诩为“犹太复国主义”的反对​​派组成的多元化联盟仍未获得多数席位。总理内塔尼亚胡领导的利库德集团似乎是最大的政党，但其选举联盟尚未赢得足够席位组建政府。

然而，毫无疑问的是，以色列巴勒斯坦公民的投票率大幅上升，这使得阿拉伯政党成为议会中的关键集团，如果任何一方愿意与他们合作，他们有可能决定哪个敌对阵营组建政府。

以色列大选：变革与反巴勒斯坦情绪之争（共四篇，此为第一篇）

巴拉德党领袖抨击以色列对阿拉伯政党的“种族主义”排斥（共4条，此为第2条）

列表 3/4：以色列选举的影响是什么？

以色列选举言论（共4项，此为第4项）：反巴勒斯坦、夸张、煽动恐惧

以色列对加沙发动种族灭绝战争，以及分析人士所描述的以色列执政联盟的公然种族主义，引发了巴勒斯坦裔以色列公民的愤怒，促使他们踊跃投票。

据估计，以色列符合投票资格的巴勒斯坦选民中，约有 80% 的人参加了周二的选举，这标志着占以色列人口约 21% 的巴勒斯坦群体的投票率大幅上升。

此次选举结果使得代表以色列巴勒斯坦公民的两大主要选举名单——阿拉伯联合名单（Ra'am）和联合名单——在120个议席的议会中共获得19个席位，这可能使它们在决定谁组建下一届政府方面发挥决定性作用。

然而，以色列的主要政治人物非但没有承认这种广泛的支持，反而试图否定巴勒斯坦人的投票合法性——将其归咎于外国干涉——或者以某种方式将巴勒斯坦人行使民主权利的行为描绘成“企图窃取选举”。

阿拉伯人的选票不算数

内塔尼亚胡领导的利库德集团将此次选举结果解读为旨在“实现以色列伊斯兰化”，甚至呼吁以色列国家安全局（辛贝特）调查是否存在外国势力干预巴勒斯坦选民大规模投票的可能性。此举似乎质疑了阿拉伯选民投票的合法性，并玷污了反对派未来与阿拉伯政党结盟的任何尝试。

尽管以色列犹太人领导的反对派谴责内塔尼亚胡政府腐败、无能，损害了以色列的国际地位，但他们中的大多数人仍然不愿接受巴勒斯坦各政党的支持，以将内塔尼亚胡赶下台。

左翼民主党人最有可能与巴勒斯坦各政党合作，而其他反对派人士要么抵制这种联盟，要么不愿否认外国势力帮助操纵巴勒斯坦选民投票率激增的指控。

2026年10月27日，以色列中左翼联合名单政治联盟领导人优素福·贾巴林和其他成员在以色列北部城市拿撒勒的联盟竞选总部欢呼。[法新社]

选举之夜，前总理纳夫塔利·贝内特和亚伊尔·拉皮德排除了与巴勒斯坦政党共同执政的可能性，尽管他们在 2021-2022 年短暂执政期间曾依靠巴勒斯坦政党的支持。

周四，另一位反对派领袖、以色列贝特努党极右翼领导人阿维格多·利伯曼也排除了与巴勒斯坦各党派组建联合政府的可能性。他表示，他不会与“内塔尼亚胡或提比”合作，这里他使用了内塔尼亚胡的绰号，并援引联合名单党成员、塔阿勒党领导人艾哈迈德·提比来代表更广泛的巴勒斯坦阵营。

“从竞选活动来看，投票率肯定会很高，”代表巴勒斯坦人占多数的巴拉德党参选的奥莉·诺伊说。“执政联盟已经表明，在加沙地带没有任何红线，以色列的巴勒斯坦人感觉他们可能就是下一个目标。人们也无法忍受犯罪率飙升和由极右翼国家安全部长伊塔马尔·本-格维尔领导的警察部队再执政一个任期。”

“自10月7日以来，巴勒斯坦人仅有的几项权利也在逐渐消失。他们手中最后的筹码——也是他们唯一与其他人平等的东西——就是选票，所以他们大量行使了这项权利，但现在就连这项权利似乎也在被削弱和否定，”她说。

所有选票统计完毕后，支持内塔尼亚胡的阵营获得 53 个席位，而反对内塔尼亚胡的犹太反对派阵营获得 48 个席位。然而，加上巴勒斯坦政党所占的 19 个席位，议会中的多数派反对内塔尼亚胡。

“为什么反对派和媒体会把这次选举看作是三方分裂？在任何其他理性的民主国家，人们都会把这次选举视为反对派的压倒性胜利和对内塔尼亚胡的否定，但我们并没有这样做，”诺伊说道。

“相反，我们却听到反对派人士谈论要与内塔尼亚胡组建某种形式的民族团结政府。这既体现了这些政党的种族主义程度——他们不愿与阿拉伯人结盟以形成多数派——也体现了他们极其不民主，”她说道。

反对派刻意将自身定位为犹太复国主义者，而巴勒斯坦少数族裔则要求享有平等的民族和公民权利，但这一诉求被一些人视为对犹太复国主义的否定，两者之间确实存在政治分歧。但政治分析家尼姆罗德·弗拉申伯格认为，这种分歧的根源在于对以色列未来的根本不同愿景。

“鉴于以色列主流政治很大程度上建立在犹太人至上的假设之上，我认为阿拉伯人的选票被视为一种挑战是可以理解的，”他谈到这种观点时说道。许多人认为，自 2018 年《民族国家法》颁布以来，这种观点一直是以色列的国家政策，该法将民族自决权确立为犹太人的专属权利。

他说：“对于成为以色列公民的意义，以及以色列应该如何治理、为谁谋利，存在着截然不同的理念。这些当然是根本性的分歧，但它们掩盖不了所有分歧背后隐藏的种族主义。”

“他们想组建一个只有犹太人声音的政府，”联合名单的希伯来语竞选主任毛里西奥·拉普奇克说。“如果这些结果出现在另一个国家，一个民主国家，我认为他们拥有如此多数席位，却不能说自己赢得了选举，这简直太荒谬了。但只有在以色列，因为阿拉伯人的声音不被视为犹太人的声音，所以我们不能谈论胜利。”