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Israel's deadlocked election puts Arab parties at the centre of coalition talks

2 November 2026 · Algeria Now

Israel's deadlocked election puts Arab parties at the centre of coalition talks — Photo : img.turkiyetoday.com (adresse collée)

JERUSALEM — Israel's inconclusive election of 27 October has left Arab-led parties holding the balance of power, and the question of whether the opposition will work with them now dominates coalition talks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc won 53 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, while the bloc led by former army chief Gadi Eisenkot won 48. Neither can govern alone. The two Arab-led parties, Ra'am and the Joint List, together won 19 seats and nearly 840,000 votes, a rise of 64 percent on 2022. Added to Eisenkot's bloc, they would reach 67 seats.

On Saturday, thousands gathered in Tel Aviv's Habima Square urging the opposition to form such a partnership to remove Netanyahu, while counter-demonstrators backed the prime minister. Eisenkot had previously ruled out a coalition with Arab parties, and the idea remains politically sensitive. Netanyahu has accused the Arab parties of "stealing" the election and receiving funds from Qatar, a charge Qatar rejected as a disinformation campaign.

Palestinian citizens of Israel make up roughly a fifth of the population, and their strong showing is a reminder that the country's politics cannot be separated from the status of Palestinians.

Algeria's position does not depend on Israeli coalition arithmetic. It holds that the Palestinian question will be settled only by ending the occupation and creating a sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Netanyahu's government has rejected Palestinian statehood, and the International Court of Justice found in July 2024 that Israel's continued presence in the occupied territory is unlawful.

Whoever forms the next government will inherit that legal reality, along with the fragile truce in Gaza and a surge of settler violence in the West Bank.

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