Israel Arab Voters Score Big Election Gains

Leaders of a lengthy and concerted drive over the years to broaden political participation by Israel’s Arab citizens saw their efforts pay off in Israel’s recent national election.

Israeli Arab voters, who make up 20 percent of the population, turned out in unprecedented numbers on Oct. 27 to elect 19 new members to the Knesset, Israel’s legislative body, exceeding all expectations.

According to the Israel’s Central Election Committee, nearly 840,000 people voted for Ra’am, a moderate Arab party, and the Arab Joint List, a coalition of three smaller parties. That’s a jump of 64 percent over the Arab turnout in 2022, Israel’s last election. Nearly 80 percent of eligible Arab voters went to the polls, a historic high. In one small Bedouin village in the Negev, 92 percent voted, more than in any single locale in the country.

The election results are the result of years of work by a national liberal coalition of nonprofit organizations to increase Arab participation in both the political process and the work of the government. Among those organizations is the Abraham Initiatives, which has worked since at least 2014 to expand the Arab role in Israel’s politics.

The work of the Abrahamic Initiatives has an Atlanta connection. Last November, a coalition of community groups, including the American Jewish Committee, National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Emory University Center for Peace Building and Conflict Transformation, and The Spring sponsored a visit here of Initiatives leaders from Israel.

During an evening program at The Temple, they discussed their work which went beyond just getting out the vote for Israel’s elections. They have pilot programs to influence public policies at all levels of government in Israel. They are also working to foster a society in which Arabs and Jews work together in education and economic life. They have started an important initiative to integrate Jewish and Arab students in shared learning and to broaden the role of social workers in Arab communities.

Also participating in the evening at The Temple was Fay Twersky, president and director of The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. She also serves as chairman of the board of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, a research and education center that works to foster closer ties between Arabs and Jews in Israel.

“It is a place for open minds, for exploration, for bridging ideas and bridging divides,” Twersky says. “We need to treat this kind of place as sacred in our increasingly polarized world.”

The co-executive director of the Abrahamic Initiatives, Amnon Be’eri-Sulitzeanu, who was raised on an Israeli kibbutz, is cautiously optimistic about the future of Arab participation in Israel’s government.

“We did deliver a fantastic turnout rate,” Sulitzeanu said, “but we did not deliver legitimacy among the mainstream Jewish community for a political partnership between Jews and Arabs and for the inclusion of the Arab minority in the Israeli government.”

In the Jewish diaspora there were calls, however, to include Israel’s Arabs in a new government. In an open letter published on Nov. 5, 500 Jewish leaders around the world urged those who opposed the Netanyahu government, both Arabs and Jews, to work together to end what it called “incitement against Israel’s Arab citizens” and “delegitimization of political partnership.” Among those signing the letter was former British Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Ismar Schorsch, chancellor emeritus of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

For his part, Prime Minister Netanyahu has attempted to discredit the success of the Arab parties. Immediately after the election he accused them of trying to bring about the “Islamization of Israel.”

Only once before in Israel’s political history have Arabs been a part of a ruling coalition. In the brief government of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid in 2021 to 2022, the Ra-am party was included. But that was before the events of Oct. 7, the protracted campaign against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Israel’s troubled occupation of the West Bank.

It’s thought that despite the results of October’s election, the prospect of a government coalition with the participation of the Arab parties is generally believed to be unlikely. But in the intricate negotiations that may lead to a new government, anything is possible.

Liberal Arabs like Dr. Thabet Abu Rass, who has served as a co-CEO of the Abrahamic Initiatives, was buoyed by the unexpected turnout of Arab voters and the prospect that it might lead to a new day in Israel’s political life.

“Arabs are really happy with the number of seats they have, however, they would like to use them to be influential in the Knesset, to be part of the political game, so to speak, and they would like to see the leaders of the opposition step up and really show leadership.”