Ahead of Next Week's Israeli Election, Polls Put Eisenkot's Bloc at 52 Seats to Netanyahu's 50; Arab Turnout Could Decide Who Governs
Israel's Palestinian leaders are urging people in the minority Arab community to vote in big numbers in next week's election as they seek to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and topple the most right-wing government in the country's history, Reuters reported on October 19.
High turnout by the 21% Arab minority, who are Palestinian by heritage but Israeli by citizenship, could nudge Israel's complex coalition arithmetic in favour of an anti-Netanyahu bloc led by a former military chief, Gadi Eisenkot. "We can ensure the formation of a new government of change," Mansour Abbas, an Islamist dentist-turned-politician who heads the United Arab List party, told Reuters in his office in Nazareth, Israel's most populous Arab city.
Opinion polls suggest Eisenkot's patchwork bloc of centrist, right- and left-wing parties would win 52 of the Knesset's 120 seats if elections were held today. Netanyahu's religious-nationalist bloc would win 50 seats. Abbas' party is projected to win five seats, with a further eight going to the Joint List, a coalition of three Arab parties. The polls suggest Eisenkot's bloc will get the most votes but fall short of a majority, and will need Arab support, either as coalition partners or from outside, to prop up a minority government.
Eisenkot has so far ruled out forming a government with the Arab parties, citing a lack of shared values. "I will not align myself with any Arab party," Eisenkot said in a podcast this month, citing among other issues their refusal to label Hamas a terrorist organisation. But Abbas thinks there will be room for manoeuvre, perhaps after the vote, largely thanks to the cold, hard realities of electoral maths. "We want to replace the right-wing government... to end the wars and these policies, to stop the expansion of settlements and to address the failure to stop settler attacks," Abbas said. "We also want a government that brings shared security and peace for Palestinians and Israelis." To win over Jewish parties, Abbas has taken the unprecedented step of giving the number two spot on his slate to a Jewish former police official, Yoav Segalovitz. "It sends a message of partnership with the Jewish community and with Jewish citizens," Abbas said.
Ahmad Tibi, a Joint List leader, said his group was ready to form "a preventive block to support (a government) from the outside," and could wield just as much influence by staying in opposition. He said the Joint List would join an Eisenkot-led government in voting "to establish an official commission of inquiry into October 7," a stated priority of the former military chief and his partners. "We are placing as our top priority getting rid of the extreme right-wing government of Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir," Tibi said.
Party organizers in Nazareth are hoping to capitalize on Arab anger with Netanyahu, far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, as well as frustration with rising crime in their communities. Ahead of the vote, Smotrich proposed a plan to "Judaize" areas around Nazareth in the north and in southern Israel where most Arabs live. Last week, canvassers with Abbas' party handed out flyers near Nazareth's massive Church of the Annunciation. "There is a greater need this time than ever before to go out and vote in large numbers," said one of the people they approached, 74-year-old Gassan Bsoul. "The danger is greater than in the past," he added.
Israeli pollsters expect Arab voter turnout to be higher than in previous rounds of elections in 2022 and 2020. The Stat-Net Research Institute, based in an Arab Druze town near Haifa, projects turnout of 63%, compared with 56% in 2022.
The election will be the first since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, and is being viewed as a referendum on the leadership of Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving leader, Reuters noted. Abbas' own career shows such alliances can be made: in 2021 he became the first Arab Muslim to join an Israeli coalition as a minister, in a government led by Naftali Bennett, now a right-wing member of Eisenkot's bloc; that government collapsed after 18 months, partly over disagreements between the two men on the occupied West Bank. If any bloc fails to form a workable government, that could lead to a period of political deadlock, then fresh elections in 2027, with Netanyahu left in charge in the meantime. Netanyahu's campaign has used doctored images and SI-generated videos to depict his rivals embracing Arab leaders; one faked video, released over the summer, shows Eisenkot running through a meadow into the outstretched arms of Abbas. (GSM, via Reuters)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：以色列最大阿拉伯城市拿撒勒的天使报喜教堂。路透社此次选情报道即发自拿撒勒。（供稿图）
- 2026-10-19Ahead of Next Week's Israeli Election, Polls Put Eisenkot's Bloc at 52 Seats to Netanyahu's 50; Arab Turnout Could Decide Who GovernsThis story
- 2026-10-19Hegseth Meets Netanyahu on Unannounced Israel Visit, as Vance Declines to Endorse Netanyahu the Same Day
- 2026-10-20Trump Gives Netanyahu His Complete and Total Endorsement Ahead of Israel's Oct. 27 Election, With a Warning to Iran
- 2026-10-21Bank of Israel Holds Benchmark Rate at 3.25%, Pausing After Three Straight Cuts a Week Before the Election; 2026 Growth Forecast at 5.6%
- 2026-10-26Follow-up: On Election Eve, Netanyahu Touts Trump's Endorsement and Says He Ordered Mossad and IDF to Bring Down Iran's Regime; Rival Cites Fear-Mongering
- 2026-10-27Israel Holds Knesset Election on October 27: 7.33 Million Voters, 12,018 Polling Stations Open Until 10 p.m.
- 2026-10-27Follow-Up: Israel Election Turnout Fastest in 49 Years as 31.5% Vote in First Five Hours; Shekel Jumps Nearly 1% to a Three-Week High
- 2026-10-27Follow-Up: Israel Exit Polls Put Likud First With 25 Seats, but Neither Bloc Reaches the 61 Seats Needed to Govern
- 2026-10-28Follow-up: With Over 70% of Votes Counted in Israel's Election, Netanyahu Bloc Projected at 54 Seats, Still Short of a Majority; Shekel Falls About 2%
- 2026-10-28Follow-Up: With About 86% Counted, Likud Leads Israel Election With 26 Seats but Neither Bloc Has a Majority; Herzog Urges Parties to Avoid Another Election
- 2026-10-29Follow-Up: Israel's Election Chief Asks Shin Bet to Probe Suspected Foreign Interference Within a Week Amid Qatar Funding Claims
- 2026-10-30Israel's Final Election Results: Netanyahu's Bloc Falls Short at 53 Seats, Arab Parties Hold the Balance With 19
