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# The Man Who Could Govern Israel Will Not
- URL: https://www.diplopolis.com/israel-election-deadlock-eisenkot-arab-parties-2026/
- Published: 2026-11-04T04:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-06T13:21:05.000Z
- Description: Israel's October election produced a clear majority for change: 67 seats if Eisenkot works with the Arab-led parties. He has so far refused. The parliament convenes November 10, the deadlock continues, and Israel may be heading for its sixth election in five years.
- Author: Sunny Peter
- Tags: The Ledger, Israel, Eisenkot, Netanyahu, Arab parties, coalition, Knesset, election 2026, Ra'am, Joint List

Israel held an election on October 27\. The turnout was 77.9 per cent, the highest in decades. The result was not a government. Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc won 53 seats. The opposition led by Gadi Eisenkot won 48\. [The two main Arab-led parties](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/2/arab-parties-back-eisenkot-whats-the-latest-in-israels-coalition-talks?ref=diplopolis.com) — Ra'am and the Joint List — won 19 combined, a 64 per cent increase in their vote from 2022\. A coalition needs 61 of 120\. The numbers are clear: Netanyahu cannot form a government without Arab support, which he has ruled out. Eisenkot could form one with Arab support, which he has also, until now, ruled out. The election produced a majority for change and a minority of politicians willing to use it.

The arithmetic is not complicated. Eisenkot's 48 seats plus the Arab parties' 19 gives 67, well above the threshold. Ra'am, with eight seats, has said it would join an Eisenkot-led government if it receives the internal security portfolio. The Joint List, with 11 seats, has said it will not join the coalition but would vote with it in the Knesset from outside. That arrangement — a parliamentary majority built from outside the government — is not novel. It has been used in Israeli politics before. The question is whether Eisenkot will accept it.

Eisenkot's public position has been that any coalition partner must recognise Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, support army conscription, and designate Hamas a terror organisation. The Arab parties' response has been mixed. Ra'am appears willing to negotiate. The Joint List's leader, Yousef Jabareen, said clearly that his party 'cannot be part of a government' while the occupation of the West Bank continues. These are not trivial differences. But they are not irreconcilable either, in a system where outside parliamentary support has long been an accepted mechanism.

What is happening on the streets is more revealing than what is happening in the coalition talks. [Thousands rallied in Tel Aviv](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/1/thousands-rally-in-israel-urging-eisenkot-arab-deal-to-remove-netanyahu?ref=diplopolis.com) last week urging Eisenkot to do a deal with the Arab parties before it was too late. The rally's organisers called it the 'last chance for real change.' Netanyahu supporters counter-protested outside Eisenkot's home. Likud called the idea of cooperation with Arab parties 'dangerous to Israel.' Netanyahu himself wrote on social media that forming a government with Arab parties was 'forbidden.' He also claimed, without evidence, that Arab voter turnout reflected organised fraud backed by foreign money. Qatar rejected the claims. The Central Elections Committee chief said that even if the suspicions were proven, they would not undermine the results.

The Central Elections Committee certified the results on Wednesday. President Isaac Herzog will now consult the eleven parties and nominate the candidate most likely to form a government — probably Netanyahu or Eisenkot. That candidate gets 28 days to form a coalition, extendable by 14\. If the nominee fails, Herzog can try another. If that also fails, 61 Knesset members can nominate a candidate of their own within 21 days. If all of that collapses, Israel goes back to the polls. The parliament convenes on November 10 regardless.

This pattern is familiar. Israel has held five elections in four years. Each time, the deadlock was attributed to the peculiarities of coalition arithmetic. Each time, the underlying issue was the same: a portion of the Israeli political class that considers Arab-led parties illegitimate partners regardless of how many votes they received. The right has described the high Arab turnout this cycle as 'electoral terrorism', a phrase that managed, in two words, to describe both the depth of the hostility and the incoherence of the argument.

Netanyahu has three options on paper. He can try to persuade Eisenkot and others to join him in a broad coalition while delegitimising the Arab parties' mandate. He can try to draw individual parties from the opposition, though analysts say this looks unlikely. Or he can push for another election, betting that Arab voter enthusiasm will fade and his bloc will reach 61 next time. The last of these options is the most revealing. It assumes that democracy works in his favour only if fewer people from certain communities participate in it.

The question that Israel has been unable to answer across four elections in four years is not whether a majority for change exists. It does. The question is whether the man who could lead that majority is willing to do what it requires. So far, Eisenkot has answered that question the same way Netanyahu has: by treating the votes of Arab citizens as a problem to be managed rather than a mandate to be honoured.