Israel’s Arab parties are projected to win 18 seats in the Israeli parliament, exit polls indicate, after voting among Palestinian citizens of Israel surged to their highest levels in decades.
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voting → project → decades
Exit polling data from Tuesday’s vote suggested that the leading Arab-led parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, are set to hold a record number of seats in the 120-member Knesset.
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parties → suggest → Knesset
Updated exit polling indicated that the opposition bloc led by former Israeli military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party and the bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party were tied at 51 seats each.
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bloc → update → seats
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citizens → head → change
Early indications put voter turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel at around 80 percent, historic numbers that break 1999 records, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Tuesday.
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Channel → put → Tuesday
The leader of Ra’am, or the United Arab List, Mansour Abbas, said he hopes the final election results will allow the anti-Netanyahu bloc, including his party, to win the 61 seats required to form a government.
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bloc → say → government
“With the numbers we have now, there is no government,” Abbas told Israel’s Channel 12.
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Abbas → have → Channel
Abbas, whose Ra’am party currently holds five seats in the Knesset and joined the coalition that governed Israel from 2021 to 2022, added that both main blocs reached out to his party before and after the election.
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blocs → hold → election
‘Arabs can’t be kept outside’
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Arabs → keep → ?
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli ambassador, said creating a government might prove difficult for parties such as Eisenkot’s – which earlier exit polls had put narrowly ahead – because they promised not to form coalitions with Arab parties during the campaign.
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they → speak → campaign
“There’s a price to pay,” Pinkas said, because the “Arabs can’t be kept outside and only being considered and co-opted when you need their votes”.
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you → ’ → votes
He added that the Arab-led lists will make demands that a Jewish-led coalition government may not support.
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government → add → that
Netanyahu and his far-right coalition made last-ditch efforts on Tuesday to get their supporters to the polls, warning of surging voter turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel, a tactic Arab politicians denounced as racist and inflammatory.
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politicians → make → Israel
Cars flying Netanyahu’s Likud party flags drove through Jerusalem blaring the Islamic call to prayer and urging supporters to cast their ballots because “Arabs are voting”, witnesses said.
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witnesses → fly → ballots
In social media posts, the embattled prime minister highlighted long queues at polling stations in Arab communities and published an image that he said showed Arab voters, including women wearing the niqab, a veil that covers the lower half of the face, waiting to vote.
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that → highlight → face
“If we don’t wake up now, we’ll find ourselves with a government of Mansour Abbas and Ahmad Tibi,” he said, referring to two leading Palestinian members of the Knesset.
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he → wake → Knesset
Overall voter turnout was also historic, reaching its highest level since 1999 with 77.7 percent casting ballots in Tuesday’s election, the Central Elections Committee reported.
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Committee → reach → election
Palestinian citizens of Israel make up about 21 percent of the country’s population of 10 million and have traditionally voted at lower rates than Jewish Israelis.
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citizens → make → Israelis
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, called the election “an existential moment for Palestinian-Israelis”.
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Odeh → report → Israelis
She noted the record turnout among what has emerged as a key voting bloc, which drew “even [voters] who would usually boycott elections, who didn’t believe it would amount to any kind of influence, that it would change their reality, that it would alter the systemic discrimination that they face”.
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they → note → that
The Knesset has passed more than 100 laws discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel, who also face discrimination in receiving state funds, Odeh said.
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Odeh → pass → funds
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