Editorial: Israel and the Arab parties

The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune on Nov 3, 2026

Published in Op Eds

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Do Israel’s ascendant Arab parties — the Joint List and Ra’am — hold the key to a more peaceful Middle East or will they sow the seeds of Israel’s destruction?

That’s one big question to emerge from Israel’s national election, the results of which were officially announced Friday, wherein an astounding 77.9% of eligible voters cast a ballot, a level of turnout of which America can only dream.

The result from the first election held since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, was, of course, complicated, as is often the case in a parliamentary system: The so-called pro-Netanyahu bloc or coalition — the group of parties broadly aligned with the current Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu — won 53 seats, while the anti-Netanyahu bloc won 48, with the Arab group winning 19.

That was a reduction for the pro-Netanyahu bloc, which held 68 seats in the outgoing Knesset, but hardly a tidal wave of repudiation of President Donald Trump’s endorsee, given that Netanyahu leads the Likud party, which still won the highest number of votes.

Now the question arises as to who, if anyone, will form a governing coalition and what be the role therein of the Arab parties?

Before discussing that, we think it’s worth noting that a hefty chunk of our nation’s young “from the river to the sea” protesters are either oblivious to Israel’s 2.1 million Arabs (some 20% of the country’s population) or prefer not to talk about them since it complicates the colonialist binary they prefer. But Israel, of course, is a multiracial democracy (some prefer the term “preferential democracy”). Arab citizens have a vote, and they turned out in droves and used it.

“They’re the kingmakers,” said the journalist Christiane Amanpour on X.

But are they? The question is whether or not those who want to form a government are willing to join with the Arab parties to do so.

At one extreme, you have voices like that of Yair Netanyahu, the son of the prime minister and a chip off the old block.

“These elections proved that the greatest danger to the survival of the State of Israel, aside from the Iranian nuclear program, is what is called ‘Israeli Arabs,'” the younger Netanyahu said Friday on X. “A country cannot survive long-term when 20% of its population identifies with its enemies and wants its destruction,” he added, while going on to essentially argue that Muslims cannot, and can never, live peacefully with “infidels” as their neighbors.

Joint List faction chairman Ahmad Tibi did not care for that comment, of course. And a group of prominent Israelis put out an open petition saying: “The desire of the vast majority of Israel’s Arab citizens, as expressed in their voting patterns, to participate in the parliamentary process and to play a full and equal role in the affairs of the state, is of the utmost importance and must not be ignored. It is essential to the future of democracy and the fabric of Israeli society, as well as to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

So there is the nub of the matter.

Looking from far-off Chicago, you’d think the solution was simple: One of the blocs, and one is more likely than the other, agrees to work with the Arab parties in exchange for a commitment that said parties support the existence of Israel as a democracy and its right to defend itself. Surely, any nation has the right to ask members of a nation’s governing body to commit to that. Otherwise, said party is just a cancer operating from within.

If that was secured, then full Arab participation in Israeli democracy would surely be a basis for future agreements, treaties and productive changes in the entire region. And it surely would help defang the protesters and antisemites who refuse to see Israel in those terms.

But of course it’s not that simple; the issue actually is a microcosm of the whole intractable Middle East problem. As longtime journalist Dan Perry wrote in an opinion piece for The Jerusalem Post on Friday: “the opposition should stop overthinking, get out of its own way, thank the Arabs for their support, and get on with saving the country.”

We could not agree more. Although we’d add that the Arab parties also should acknowledge the skepticism of some Israelis and commit, right now, to saying things that might make that more likely.

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