With the Israeli general election now less than five weeks away, the role of the minority Arab parties has taken on a curious role. The Netanyahu coalition has pulled even with his main competitors, with both groups significantly short of the 61 Knesset members to form the next government. However, this was based more upon disaffection with the infighting of Netanyahu’s opposition than upon any particular increase in support of Netanyahu. The Arab parties are now garnering support that indicates around 14 Knesset seats. So, Netanyahu must calculate on beating his opposition and then getting some of them to cross over and vote for him as prime minister. The question may hinge upon whether Netanyahu’s opposition decides to do what has been unthinkable—form a coalition with the Arab parties.

Over the weekend, Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, chairman of the Ta’al party and No. 2 on the Arab coalition’s Joint List, floated the idea on Israel’s Channel 12 that, as reported by the Times of Israel, the Arab “alliance would be willing to go further than backing a Netanyahu rival for prime minister, without elaborating, amid talk of a potential minority government based on Arab support from the outside.” They were open to collaborating with “the Zionist bloc opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a push to replace the Knesset speaker immediately after the next parliament is sworn in following next month’s election, even if no agreement is reached on a new coalition to replace the premier…. There are all kinds of things, a range of steps, immediately after the elections, that could change reality.”