The leaders of the four central Arab parties, Ra’am, Hadash, Ta’al, and Balad, signed a commitment on Thursday evening to work toward reestablishing the Joint List bloc ahead of the next elections.
The signing came after tens of thousands of protesters marched in a mass demonstration through the northern city of Sakhnin, rallying against police failure to curb organized crime in Israel’s Arab sector.
The Arab party leaders who joined the protest were called on by the public after the demonstration to unite and make an agreement, leading to speculation on whether it will hold.
A Hadash-Ta’al Party spokesperson told The Jerusalem Post that public pressure was one of the factors that contributed to the signing.
The signing was made "under a combination of public pressure and a responsible decision by the leadership," he told the Post.
He added that "public pressure is nothing new. More than 80% of the public wants a Joint List."
Hadash-Ta’al party leader MK Ayman Odeh later stated after the signing that the establishment of the Joint List "is the true will of our public."
"We will do everything to ensure that the Joint List is established and strengthened," he added.
Footage from the signing shows the party leaders together holding up the agreement as the public surrounds them, cheering.
Despite ongoing talks between the parties, there have also been reports of various internal disagreements amid negotiations to reestablish the joint list.
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-Israeli 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.
Odeh called on all Arab parties to unite ahead of the next elections two weeks ago during statements at the annual Givat Haviva Conference for a Shared Society.
“I call on all Arab parties: Let us unite, all of us. Let us bring 17 mandates,” he said.
Odeh added that the unity of the parties would be the “decisive factor” that removes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from his position in the next elections, currently scheduled to take place no later than October 2026.
Negotiations on reestablishing the joint list began in the summer
Negotiations on reestablishing the joint list began openly in the summer.
MK Ahmad Tibi, head of the Ta’al Party, told the Post in August 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, noting that joining together would increase voter turnout and that the union of the parties could prevent a right-wing government.
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 has said that the meetings to re-establish the Joint List were held “in an open and honest atmosphere,” adding that “disagreements between the parties were discussed.”