There is a broad Jewish-Arab majority against the government, and within it, overwhelming public support for forming a government in partnership with the Arab parties and relying on their support.
If Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Yair Golan, and Avigdor Liberman fail to translate this majority into a Jewish-Arab government, it will be a betrayal not only of Arab society, but also of their own voters.
We must demand that they have the courage to fulfill the mandate they have been given.
About a month and a half ago, when party lists were submitted for the Knesset elections, we in the A Place for Us All party made the responsible decision not to submit a list in order to not waste votes and ensure the government’s defeat. In our discussions at the time, we understood that the key to ousting the government lay in increasing voter turnout among Arab citizens.
The decision was immediate: to redirect all the organizational strength we had built from the party’s grassroots infrastructure, activists, and volunteers toward a campaign to encourage voting in Arab society.
From then until Election Day, not a day went by without us being on the ground engaging with voters. We traveled the length and breadth of the country, moving every day between villages and cities, from the North through the Triangle region to the Negev.
We met people, explained, persuaded, and did everything we could to encourage voting, reach as many people as possible, and expand our circles of influence.
The response we encountered in Arab communities was deeply moving. We met people who fully understood the significance of this moment, who wanted partnership and political influence, who wanted to take responsibility for their country, and who were prepared to do everything they could to remove the racist government that is destroying their lives.
People did not simply express their support. They took the initiative themselves, organized, called friends and family members, went out into their communities, spoke with neighbors and friends, and convinced others to go out and vote.
Fortunately, the effort paid off. Election Day will be remembered as a historic day when Arab society turned out in droves to send the racist government packing. With their own hands, Arab citizens removed from power those who have spent years oppressing them, inciting against them, and denying their rights.
Contrary to the gloom prevailing in parts of the opposition and the media, the election results represent a huge victory for the change bloc: there is a solid majority of 67 seats against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Bezalel Smotrich. And that majority is Jewish-Arab, just like our society.
This is a stinging defeat for the current government: Netanyahu’s bloc has shrunk from 68 to just 53 seats in the next Knesset, its lowest result since the March 2021 election, which ultimately led to his removal from power.
Above all, the election results are a tremendous victory for Arab society. They achieved record representation of 19 seats, ensured that the right-wing parties of Ofer Winter and Yoaz Hendel did not cross the electoral threshold, and played a decisive role in the defeat of Netanyahu’s bloc.
The time has come
Predictably, instead of accepting the will of the people, the government and its spokespeople are trying to undermine the election results through a massive campaign to delegitimize Arab voters and their elected representatives.
The purpose of this campaign is clear: to pressure the leaders of the change bloc and prevent them from forming a government, using the old, racist claim that a government relying on Arab support is illegitimate. But we must not lose sight of the facts: a broad majority voted to send them home.
In fact, not only is there a majority against the government, but within that majority there is clear support for forming a government in partnership with the Arab parties and relying on their support.
A poll conducted by the aChord Center two days after the election, among 935 respondents, shows that an overwhelming majority of change bloc voters support forming a government with Ra’am participating and the Joint List supporting. Moreover, according to the poll, such a majority exists among the voters of every party in the change bloc, including Liberman’s voters.
To this we must add the fact that both Arab parties fully understand the significance of this moment and have made clear that they are willing to do everything to bring about the replacement of the current government. Golan is also already publicly calling for the formation of a Jewish-Arab government.
Our task now, Jews and Arabs alike, is to ensure that the other leaders of the change bloc – Eisenkot, Bennett, and Liberman – do not buckle under the pressure and respond to their voters’ explicit demand to form a Jewish-Arab government.
There is no reason for us to keep playing by Netanyahu’s racist rules, under which only a Jewish majority is considered a legitimate majority. It is time to understand that there can be no genuine democracy as long as 20% of our society is excluded from government and centers of decision-making.
If the leaders of the change bloc fail to translate this clear Jewish-Arab majority into a Jewish-Arab government, it will be a slap in the face not only to Arab citizens, who voted in unprecedented numbers and took responsibility for the future of us all, but also to their own voters.
The time has come to demand political courage from our leaders: to stop fearing Jewish-Arab partnership and translate the election results into a stable government. This is not a revolutionary step, but the realization of the most basic democratic principle: every citizen has an equal voice and an equal say in determining the future of this country.
The writer is the co-chair of the A Place for Us All party.