Fear and a Desire to Belong Brought Israeli Arabs to the Polls

Now that all the votes have been counted, it is clear that the big story of last week’s Israeli election isn’t the fate of Benjamin Netanyahu—which remains uncertain—but the success of the Arab parties. The Joint List, an amalgamation of secular and nationalist Arab parties, came in fourth with 8.79 percent of the vote. That might seem like very little, but bear in mind that Likud, the frontrunner, only received 20.52 percent. If you add to this the 5.93 percent of the vote that went to the more religious, and more politically moderate, Ra’am, you have an Arab bloc of nineteen seats—just two fewer than the runner-up Yashar! party.