The 19 seats Netanyahu cannot ignore: Israel’s election deadlock

Israel has finished counting the votes, but its political leaders now face a more difficult question: will they accept the political power of the Palestinian citizens who cast them?

The election on 27 October produced no clear winner. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc holds 53 seats, while the opposition bloc led by former army chief Gadi Eisenkot has 48. The two Arab parties, the Joint List and the United Arab List (Ra’am), won a record 19 seats between them. Neither Jewish-led bloc has the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Netanyahu has survived another difficult election, but Palestinian citizens of Israel have changed the political equation. This is where the real test of Israeli democracy begins.

Netanyahu knows how to survive political crises; he has done so for years, often when his opponents believed his career was over. Despite the genocide in Gaza, political scandals, public anger and demands for accountability, his Likud party, with 27 seats, remains Israel’s largest. That gives him an advantage in the negotiations ahead, but it does not guarantee that he will form the next government.

President Isaac Herzog must consult the parliamentary factions and choose the lawmaker with the most realistic chance of building a coalition. Netanyahu’s problem is simple: his existing allies do not give him a majority. He could try to lure opposition lawmakers, seek a national unity government or remain caretaker prime minister if negotiations fail and the country heads towards another election. None of these options guarantees success.

The most important development in this election may be the extraordinary participation of Palestinian citizens of Israel. National turnout reached 77.7 per cent, the highest in decades, and in many Arab towns it exceeded 80 per cent, giving the Joint List and Ra’am their strongest combined representation ever. For years, Palestinian citizens have complained of discrimination, unequal public services, violent crime and political exclusion. Now they have used the ballot box to increase their influence. Their motivations vary: some want to remove Netanyahu and his far-right allies; others want better services, greater equality and protection from crime. The two Arab parties also differ in their programmes and their approach to cooperation. Yet their combined success means that neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot can simply ignore them.

This raises a question that goes beyond Israeli politics: is democracy only about counting votes, or does it also require meaningful participation? The economist Joseph Schumpeter defined democracy minimally, as competition between elites for the people’s vote. The American political scientist Robert Dahl went further: in his concept of “polyarchy”, citizens must not only be able to vote but must also have a genuine opportunity to influence political decisions.

That distinction explains the current Israeli debate. Palestinian citizens have the legal right to vote, organise parties and elect representatives, and their parties have competed in elections for decades. But when their votes become decisive in determining who governs, Jewish-led parties refuse to work with them. Parties are entitled to reject programmes they oppose. Rejecting a party because of its policies, however, is different from treating its voters as politically illegitimate because they are Arab.

Israel has already shown that cooperation is possible. In 2021, Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am joined the coalition behind the government of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. The question now is whether the Jewish-led opposition will do so again. Together, Eisenkot’s bloc and the Arab parties have 67 seats, and the Joint List has offered to help oust Netanyahu.

Yet Eisenkot has pledged not to enter a partnership with the Arab parties, and every opposition party except Yair Golan’s Democrats has rejected a coalition with them. Eisenkot wants to replace Netanyahu, but he may not be able to do so without Arab representatives. Whether Israel can turn formal voting equality into effective political representation is where the quality of its democracy will be tested.

After the vote, Likud accused Arab parties “that support terrorism” of stealing the election through bribery, threats and foreign interference, without publicly providing evidence. Credible allegations deserve investigation, and the Shin Bet is examining suspicions of foreign funding.

But the Central Elections Committee has said there is no basis for claims of systematic violations of electoral integrity, its referral to the Shin Bet named no country or party, and police have rejected the claim that Arab parties “stole” the election. An investigation into wrongdoing by individuals cannot justify questioning the legitimacy of an entire population’s political participation.

The American political scientist Nancy Bermeo has warned of “democratic backsliding”, in which elected leaders gradually weaken democratic institutions from within. Not every electoral dispute is evidence of backsliding. The warning sign appears when unsubstantiated accusations are used to undermine confidence in the results or to exclude opponents from legitimate competition.

For Netanyahu, the effect could be decisive: if cooperation with Arab representatives becomes politically toxic, Eisenkot may be unable to form a government even if the numbers allow it, leaving Netanyahu a route to power without a majority.

The struggle extends to the Knesset itself. Opposition parties could seek to replace the Speaker, Likud’s Amir Ohana, if they can muster enough support. This would not remove Netanyahu, but it would shift control of the parliamentary agenda and could open the way to issues he would prefer to avoid, including an independent investigation into the failures surrounding 7 October 2023.

Parliaments are not simply places where seats are counted; they are where governments are challenged and leaders held to account. For Palestinian representatives, this could mean influence over parliamentary negotiations without joining a government.

Palestinians should not ignore one further point: removing Netanyahu would not automatically end the occupation or create a Palestinian state. The parties in Eisenkot’s bloc disagree with Netanyahu on leadership, governance and state institutions, but not necessarily on Israel’s fundamental policies towards Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Greater parliamentary influence could help Palestinian citizens of Israel demand equality, public investment and protection from crime. For Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, however, the questions of occupation, freedom and statehood would remain unresolved. Changing a government is not the same as changing the direction of a state.

The coming weeks will determine whether Netanyahu can find new allies, whether Eisenkot can build an alternative coalition or whether Israel faces yet another election. One development, however, is already clear: Palestinian citizens have increased their parliamentary influence through high turnout, and their votes are part of the democratic process whoever eventually governs.

Democracy is measured not only by holding elections, but by political equality, fair competition, civil rights and respect for legitimate opposition. Palestinian citizens can vote, elect representatives and shift the balance of power in the Knesset. The question is whether Israel’s political leaders are prepared to accept those votes when they affect who governs. Democracy is not only about counting votes; it is also about respecting the political rights of those who cast them.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.