ISRAEL ELECTION SHOCKER: Arab List Wins With 31 Seats

The first congratulatory phone call to the head of the Joint List, Ayman Odeh, came from US President Barack Obama.

Jerusalem, March 17 – Israel underwent an electoral upheaval today as a political party representing the Arab ethnic minority swept into power, soundly defeating the longtime powerhouses Labor and Likud.

The Joint List, a consortium of four Arab parties that came together amid concerns each alone would fall short of the electoral threshold, garnered 31 Knesset seats out of the Knesset’s 120. They thus outperformed the Zionist Union led by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, and incumbent Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud, each of which earned only 20 seats. Surveys had consistently put the Joint List at 12 or 13 seats, lagging behind Likud and Zionist Union, which had leapfrogged each other in the low twenties since December.

Voter turnout proved decisive, with the majority Jewish population choosing to stay home instead of selecting the lesser of many evils. Turnout hovered at the 28% mark, a record low for national elections and a glaring indication of a deeply disillusioned electorate. In contrast, traditionally apathetic Arab voters turned out in droves, polling far beyond their strength as a percentage of the population, which stands at about 20% of Israel’s 8 million citizens.

Congratulations poured in from all over the world as the victory was confirmed Tuesday. The first phone call to the head of the Joint List, Ayman Odeh, came from US President Barack Obama. “It is gratifying to me personally and as an American to see this historic day finally arrive,” the president told Odeh. “The true people of the land of Palestine will finally control their fate.” Other leaders joined the list of well-wishers, such as Egyptian President  al-Sisi, Turkish President Erdogan, and even Saudi King Salman, heralding what they hoped would be a “new era in the Middle East,” as Salman put it. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin emerged from oblivion to congratulate Odeh, putting an end to speculation over his whereabouts and welfare.

Implications for the future of Israel as a state and society remain murky, but several important questions have been answered, among them whether during the coming term the government will again take up the issue of explicitly defining Israel as a Jewish country, one of the thorny problems that led to the collapse of the previous coalition under Netanyahu. The ramifications for a peace agreement with the Palestinians also defy prediction, since any far-reaching moves will require a broad consensus – something a minority-led government is unlikely to command.

With 31 seats the Joint List is now in position to form a government, with Odeh as the prime minister. Doing so will require him to cobble together a coalition to reach a majority of at least 61 MKs, a formidable challenge. The Joint List has natural allies on several important social and economic issues, but fierce ideological opposition on other fronts may prevent even those shared interests from translating into a political coalition.

Odeh and his fellow Arab MKs would under other circumstances gravitate toward a coalition that includes the leftist party Meretz, but Meretz suffered a crushing defeat as most of the voters who had supported them instead opted in a fit of honesty to vote directly for the Arab parties instead of pretending to be Zionist. As a result Meretz failed to meet the electoral threshold entirely, and will be forced to sit out the 20th Knesset.