Arabs who live in Israel and have Israeli citizenship make up about one-fifth of Israelās population. In 2015 a Joint List of parties that predominantly represent those Arab communities emerged as the third largest party in the Knesset, winning 15 out of 120 seats. Since that election, centrist and left-leaning parties in Israel have struggled to form a coalition without including the Arab parties. They have been reluctant to do so because the Arab factions reject Zionism as a guiding ideology for government policy. In 2021 Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on the right-wing side of politics, was unseated as prime minister for the first time in more than a decade, but only after Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid included the United Arab List (RaŹæam), an Arab party, in their coalition. In the 2026 elections the Joint List and the United Arab List (RaŹæam) together won 19 seats. The right-wing incumbent bloc and the center-left opposition bloc both failed to win a majority, placing the Arab parties in a potential kingmaking role.
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