Arab Joint List Opens Talks to Oust Netanyahu After Deadlocked Vote
Speaking to a state-owned Israeli radio station, Tibi, who chairs the Ta’al party, said the Arab-led alliance is prepared to help the so-called “change bloc” push Netanyahu from power. A formal seat in a governing coalition is unlikely, he said. The Joint List groups the Arab-majority parties Ta’al, Balad and Hadash.
“We have blocked the possibility of Netanyahu forming a government,” Tibi said, referring to the election results. “Our public wants us to go further and influence the shape of the political system after the elections.”
Tibi said the alliance would consider parliamentary arrangements, including how and when its lawmakers vote. In return, it wants movement on problems facing Israel’s Arab minority: crime, house demolitions, infrastructure and incitement.
“We will probably not be an organic part of this government,” he said, adding that other arrangements were possible.
The pressure to engage Arab parties is also coming from inside the rival camp. Yair Golan, head of the center-left Democrats party, which belongs to the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot, called on his allies to drop their refusal to work with Arab factions.
“We must no longer accept Netanyahu’s racist division between Jewish votes and Arab votes,” Golan wrote on social media platform X.
Yousef Jabareen, chairman of the Joint List, likewise signaled readiness to help Eisenkot replace Netanyahu.
“Anyone who wants to offer a real alternative to Netanyahu’s bloodstained government will have to talk to us,” Jabareen said in a statement. “We are ready to pave the way for Netanyahu’s removal.”
The overtures come as ballots are still being tallied after a vote that appears to have left neither Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc nor the rival camp, headed by former military chief Eisenkot, with the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat parliament.
With roughly 77 percent of ballots counted, Israel’s Central Elections Committee, which oversees the vote, projected 54 seats for Netanyahu’s bloc and 49 for Eisenkot’s. The Joint List and the Muslim Ra’am party were projected to take 17 seats between them, 11 of them for the Joint List.
That could make the Joint List a kingmaker, most plausibly by backing a government from outside the coalition. But both Netanyahu and Eisenkot have previously ruled out governing with Arab parties, which complicates any path to a majority.
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