The leaders of the four central Arab parties, Ra’am, Hadash, Ta’al, and Balad, agreed to move forward with negotiations to reestablish the Joint List bloc ahead of the next elections during a Monday evening meeting.
The bloc, once made up of the four Arab parties, began to break apart ahead of the 2021 elections after Ra’am left the alliance. Then, in a dramatic last-minute split in 2022, Balad broke off from the two remaining factions and filed a separate list.
Currently, the two Arab-Israel parties in the Knesset are Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al – the latter a reduced Joint List that agreed to run together in the 2022 election.
MK Ahmad Tibi, head of Hadash-Ta’al, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that “the four Arab lists must run together on a joint slate,” due to “the challenges facing Arab society in Israel and the state as a whole.”
“This is also the will of the public, which consistently demands it,” Tibi said.
He noted that joining together would increase voter turnout and that the union of the parties could prevent a right-wing government.
This would “ensure the removal of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich, and [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir,” Tibi told the Post.
The four parties agreed to hold another meeting next week to discuss additional issues in depth, he said.
First Arab party to be formal member of governing coalition
In 2021, the Ra’am Party joined the coalition during the Naftali Bennett-Yair Lapid government, marking the first time an Arab party was a formal member of a governing coalition.
The Hadash-Ta’al Party stated that the meeting to re-establish the Joint List was held “in an open and honest atmosphere,” adding that “disagreements between the parties were discussed, and it was agreed to continue intensive dialogue in the near future.”
Future talks would be conducted to address “the urgent needs of the Arab community, including the fight against racism and crime, dealing with the consequences of the war, and working toward ending the war,” Hadash-Ta’al said.
The party also noted that upcoming discussions would address the promotion of a fair “political solution to the Palestinian issue.”
A poll in March, carried out by Statnet on behalf of the NGO Abraham Initiatives, found that a list combining the four Arab parties would win at least 13 seats if an election were held at that time.
If the parties were to run separately, it would likely lead them to a loss in representation, the poll results highlighted.
“The survey leaves no room for doubt: The Arab public is interested in two things – joint participation of the Arab lists and political influence through entering the government or supporting it from the outside,” Amnon Be’eri-Sulitzeanu, CEO of the Abraham initiatives, said at the time the poll was released.
“These are very encouraging signs for those who aspire to see the establishment of a Center-Left government in Israel.”