Trouble For The Anti-Bibi Camp? Arab Parties Looking To Unite
After breaking up in 2021 to run separately, the four Arab parties are looking into reuniting into a Joint List as before, which may shake up the coming Knesset election.
Representatives of the four Arab parties - Ra'am, Hadash, Ta'al, and Balad - met today (Monday) in an effort to see if it might be possible for the four parties to reunite into a unified Joint List for the upcoming Knesset elections, set to take place November 2026.
The parties had all split up in 2021, with Balad failing to pass the electoral threshold to get into the Knesset, Hadash-Ta'al remaining in the opposition, and Ra'am joining the Bennet-Lapid "change" government.
If this unification is successful, it will cause major problems for the anti-Netanyahu coalition of Liberman, Lapid, Golan, Gantz, and Eizenkot. Even the most favorable polls show the anti-Bibi bloc struggling to get a majority, and most do not show a path to a majority without Ra'am in it.
Multiple opposition party leaders have voiced at least formal opposition to forming a government with Ra'am due to a number of its MKs expressing sympathy for terrorism or October 7, and while they may be willing to swallow their pride again for the sake of defeating Netanyahu, aligning with the far more stridently anti-Israel parties of Hadash-Ta'al and Balad may be a step too far.
This would bring back the electoral deadlock Israel suffered from starting in 2019 until 2021, when multiple failed efforts to form unity governments resulted in several successive elections. As Israel is still embroiled in a national emergency due to the hostages and the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
One thing is for sure: A unified Arab party would increase Netanyahu's chances, if not of electoral victory, then at least denying his opponents a needed governing majority.