Ahead of Israel’s high-stakes election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has singled out Ra’am and the Joint List in his attacks on rivals more often than almost any other party. The two parties represent Palestinian citizens, who make up roughly 20 percent of the population, and together they are projected to win 13 seats.
If that projection holds at the October 27 polls, the Arab-led lists could prove decisive in forming any government after the vote, regardless of its political orientation.
Ra’am’s record and its shifting stance on coalitions
Ra’am made history in 2021 when it became the first Arab party to join an Israeli government. It took part in a broad coalition that briefly ousted Netanyahu from power. Before that, Netanyahu had shown willingness to discuss terms for a possible government with Mansour Abbas, Ra’am’s leader, as well as with the United Arab List.
Abbas instead joined the coalition led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, hoping to push through some of the measures he had campaigned on. This time, both the Netanyahu camp and most leaders of the Zionist opposition bloc have ruled out working with the parties that represent Palestinian citizens. Even so, Netanyahu and his allies have tried to portray their opponents as dependent on the Arab-led lists, while the opposition has accused them of relying on the ultra-Orthodox parties to hold onto power.
Yossi Mekelberg, a Middle East analyst at Chatham House, said Netanyahu would work with Ra’am “in a heartbeat” if it helped him stay in power. He also argued that the opposition does not appear to grasp the consequences of its own attacks on Ra’am, which could become a building block of any future government.
Likud has used sharp attack adverts to warn that if Netanyahu loses, the Arab parties would become kingmakers in a new government potentially led by former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party. One Likud campaign slogan read: “There is no Gadi without [Ahmad] Tibi,” referring to the leader of Ta’al, one of three parties in the Joint List.
Ra’am, founded in 1996, has already moved away from its religiously conservative roots. In December 2025, Abbas said the party’s political decision-making body would separate from its religious council. Eight months later, it chose its electoral list independently for the first time, placing Yoav Segalovitz, a Jewish Zionist and former senior police commander who served as deputy public security minister in the Bennett-Lapid government, second on the slate.
Mekelberg described Ra’am as one of the most interesting parties in this year’s race. “Through Mansour Abbas, they are continually reinventing themselves without appearing opportunist,” he said.
Disqualification bid and the Supreme Court ruling
This is the first election since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed an estimated 1,200 people and led to the war in Gaza. The war has also accelerated a political shift to the right, with Arab-led parties increasingly targeted by right-wing figures who portray them as complicit in the October 7 assault.
In May, Bennett apologised for entering government with Ra’am. In September, Likud and the Otzma Yehudi party of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir petitioned to bar Ra’am and the Joint List from running. On September 23, the Central Elections Committee, whose members are drawn from the parties in the Knesset, voted to disqualify both lists and two individual candidates.
Balad leader Sami Abu Shehadeh was to be barred over an article he wrote on October 8, 2023, in which he described the previous day’s attack as an “important historic event.” Ofer Cassif, a Jewish politician with Hadash, was also targeted in a Likud petition that cited legal bans on candidates who back an armed struggle by an enemy state or terrorist organisation against Israel.
On October 2, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the disqualifications of the Joint List and Ra’am, and it overturned Cassif’s by a 7-2 majority. Abu Shehadeh had withdrawn his candidacy a day earlier, after it became clear the court was likely to uphold his disqualification. Cassif later told an interviewer that the ruling was “a political decision far more than a judicial one,” driven by a “fear that they’re going to need us.”
Orly Noy, a Balad candidate and the first Jewish politician voted into the party list’s top five, said it was “safe to say” the alliance will not be part of the next ruling coalition. She argued that outcome depends on whether other parties choose to serve their voters or their own prejudice. Even if excluded, she said, the alliance could still win concessions from any coalition in exchange for its support, which might not end the occupation but could improve people’s daily lives.
Ultra-Orthodox parties face their own political costs
The fallout from October 7 has not only reached Arab parties with no link to that day. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties have also been affected. As regular partners in Likud-led governments, they have been accused by many leading opponents of dodging military conscription, while also relying heavily on a generous state welfare system.
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community is mainly represented by two parties. Shas draws on Jews of Spanish, North African and Middle Eastern descent, while United Torah Judaism (UTJ) represents Jews of central and eastern European descent. Each is polling at about seven or eight seats.
Their priorities are less about foreign policy and taxation than about exempting ultra-Orthodox students from military service, securing welfare support for large families, where many men study rather than work, and protecting state funding for their schools and institutions.
Both parties broke with Likud last year after it failed to pass a draft exemption. UTJ left the coalition entirely, while Shas quit the government but kept its 11 lawmakers in the parliamentary coalition. Shas later gave up its coalition committee roles, and both parties boycotted coalition bills.
That support has carried a political cost. In January, opposition leader Yair Lapid accused the government of sending billions “to the corrupt and [the] draft dodgers.” Avigdor Lieberman, who heads the Yisrael Beytenu list and is another possible contender for the premiership, compared Shas and UTJ to the Taliban over their lack of female representation.
