Two blocs short of a majority

Israel's election on Wednesday left neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing, religious bloc nor the centrist bloc of his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, on course for a majority in the Knesset, where 61 of 120 seats are needed to take control. With more than 85 percent of votes counted, Netanyahu and his allies stood at around 53 percent support and Eisenkot's 'Change' bloc just under 50. That arithmetic is what could make the Arab parties the kingmakers of this Israeli election.

The rival camps claimed the night for themselves. At Likud headquarters in Jerusalem in the early hours, Netanyahu proclaimed Likud the largest party in the election, listing Israel's military achievements since the October 7 terror attacks three years ago and calling for a strong right-wing nationalist government. In Tel Aviv, Eisenkot, a former general, declared victory for what he called Israel's Zionist national majority.

Into that gap step the Arab parties. The Joint List and Ra'am are projected to send some 19 lawmakers to the Knesset, the biggest upset of the night, and both blocs now need either to build a majority or to settle for a minority arrangement - which puts the Arab parties potentially holding the key for Eisenkot at least.

Eisenkot's four conditions

Eisenkot has spelled out what cooperation with the Arab parties would require. His conditions are:

• •recognising Israel as a Jewish and democratic state
• •accepting the principles of its declaration of independence
• •extending conscription to Palestinian citizens of Israel
• •denouncing Hamas as a terrorist group

Netanyahu moved to warn his rival off such a route, saying Israel must not be endangered by establishing a government that relies on what he called anti-Zionist Arab parties: "We must not endanger Israel and establish a government that relies on anti-Zionist Arab parties".

Ra'am and the Joint List respond

The responses from the Arab parties diverge. Ra'am, the moderate Islamist party that sat in Naftali Bennett's coalition in 2021, has signalled it could potentially work with Eisenkot, though talks with the Joint List would be harder. Ra'am chief Mansour Abbas pledged to make the party's weight count: "We'll translate this electoral power into an influential political force".

The Joint List struck a different tone. Amjad Shbita, head of its biggest party, rejected the idea of terms handed down from above: "Laying down the conditions won't work with the Joint List. We will negotiate as equals."

On the Zionist side of the equation, Yair Golan, head of Israel's main left-wing party, called on X for partnership rather than conditions: "We have an opportunity to form a government of change in partnership with Israel's Arab citizens."

Why the vote surged

The leverage the Arab parties now carry traces back to the ballot box. In 2022, the last election held before the October 7 attacks, the Arab bloc won just 10 seats. This time, on a voter turnout above 77 percent - the highest in almost three decades - the two parties are projected to win some 19 seats. Arab Israelis, mainly of Palestinian descent, make up around 21 percent of Israel's population and typically vote at lower rates than other Israelis.

Sylvaine Bulle, an expert at EHESS in Paris, read the surge as a political awakening: "They've woken up, obviously in response to Gaza, but above all to the occupied West Bank". She attributed the turnout partly to Israeli settlers' ramped-up violence against Palestinians and to threats by Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners to formally annex the West Bank.

But Bulle cautioned against reading the result as simple coalition arithmetic for Eisenkot. Cooperating with the Arab parties could alienate Jewish right-wing voters, she said, and "You cannot simply add their seats ... It's much more complicated than that".

In her view, one route for Eisenkot would be a minority government relying on the Arab parties' parliamentary support from outside the cabinet - an arrangement that would require agreement on a common programme, potentially including the end of the occupation of the West Bank, an extremely sensitive matter in Israel.

Final results are still pending. Both blocs must now either assemble a majority or settle for a viable minority government, and it is the Arab parties that could hold the key - for Eisenkot at least.