The Uncomfortable Arithmetic of Israeli Democracy

Elections in Israel have a habit of devolving into existential theater, but the math governing the next Knesset is stubbornly mundane. In a 120-seat parliament, opinion polls place Benjamin Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist alliance and Gadi Eisenkot’s center-right Change Bloc at roughly fifty seats apiece. That leaves a decisive block of thirteen or fourteen seats in the hands of Arab-majority parties. In any standard parliamentary democracy, such a distribution would make these lists the undisputed kingmakers of Jerusalem. In Israel, it simply exposes a profound political paralysis.

The establishment's reaction to this numerical reality ranges from open hostility to awkward avoidance. Netanyahu’s campaign has doubled down on fearmongering, deploying billboards depicting opposition figures alongside warnings of a choice between the right wing and Palestine, supplemented by synthetic videos showing rivals embracing Arab leaders. Meanwhile, Eisenkot has explicitly ruled out inviting Arab parties into a ruling coalition, pointing to a lack of shared values. It is a curious tactical choice: refusing to cooperate with the very voters who could provide a path out of opposition.

Yet within the Arab electorate—representing roughly a fifth of the country's population—the appetite for political engagement is growing, driven less by ideology than by urgent domestic self-interest. For 53.5 percent of Arab voters, the dominant concern is not regional diplomacy, but the terrifying surge of gang violence that claimed a record 252 lives in their communities last year, a homicide rate roughly five times that of Jewish Israelis. Unsolved murders, such as the shooting of Hussein Samouni in Jaffa last November, have fueled widespread accusations of state neglect and systemic discrimination.

Pragmatism is also emerging from Arab leadership itself. Mansour Abbas, head of the United Arab List, has signaled a clear desire for influence over mere opposition, even taking the unconventional step of placing Yoav Segalovitz, a Jewish former police official, second on his candidate slate. Elsewhere, the Joint Arab List has floated the idea of offering an electoral safety net to a replacement government in exchange for policy concessions. Despite attempts by the government-dominated Central Elections Committee to disqualify Arab lists—a move recently struck down by the Supreme Court—the political reality remains intact.

Posturing during campaign season is cheap, but governing requires sixty-one votes. Whether Israeli politicians choose to acknowledge it before or after the ballots are counted, the arithmetic of the Knesset will eventually assert itself.

Written by Christiane Hofreiter christiane.hofreiter@alpineweekly.com