Israeli Press
Hadash, Ta'al and Balad will run together and leave Ra'am outside
Graphic: Times of Palestine
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The three Arab parties that spent the summer failing to agree have agreed. Hadash, Ta'al and Balad will contest the 27 October Knesset election on one slate, the Israeli papers reported on Wednesday, and Ra'am will run alone.
Maariv reported the order settled after weeks of collapse and revival: Yousef Jabareen of Hadash at the head of the list, Ahmad Tibi of Ta'al second, and Sami Abu Shehadeh of Balad third. Haaretz's election desk reported the same agreement.
The obstacle that kept Ra'am out was never a seat. Mansour Abbas's party asked the other three to commit in advance not to oppose or bring down a government it chose to join. The three refused, insisting on their right to act and vote independently.
Maariv put the arithmetic at roughly twelve seats for the two Arab lists combined — a number that assumes both clear the electoral threshold, which is the part of this story with consequences.
Why the threshold decides more than the slate#
Israel's threshold is 3.25 percent of the vote, about four seats. A list that falls under it returns nothing, and the votes behind it are redistributed to parties that Palestinian citizens of Israel did not choose.
That is what makes a two-list configuration precarious rather than merely disappointing. In 2021, when the Arab parties last ran divided, turnout among Palestinian citizens fell and representation shrank; the memory of that election is the argument every unity negotiation has been having with itself since.
The paradox on the other side of the count#
Both Israeli blocs need these seats and neither wants them. The polling since June has put the Netanyahu camp short of a majority and the opposition camp short of one without the Arab lists, which leaves Palestinian citizens of Israel holding the arithmetic of a government that will not seat them.
For Palestinians under occupation, the practical stake is narrower and heavier: which coalition writes the annexation and Gaza files after October, and whether the parliamentarians who ask about Qusra, about administrative detention, about a beaten detainee's whereabouts, are inside the chamber to ask.
Slates must be filed with the Central Elections Committee before the campaign period closes, and the arrangement announced this week is not final until they are.
