The opposition’s positions are not uniform. The Democrats, led by Yair Golan, have expressed openness to cooperation with Arab parties, while Bennett and Liberman oppose such an arrangement.
The projections would give the two parties combined either 18 or 19 seats in the 120-member Knesset, compared with their five seats each in the outgoing parliament.
Yisrael Beytenu, led by Avigdor Liberman, is projected to win seven seats in the next Knesset, according to data from Israel's Central Elections Committee.
Israeli election exit polls project eight seats for Yair Golan's Democrats, potentially more than doubling the party's parliamentary representation as coalition negotiations loom.
Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party added former Likud MK Gotliv to its slate, while RZP ran in a technical bloc with Zehut, led by Moshe Feiglin, in an effort to help clear the electoral threshold.
The memory of October 2000 has not faded, but it has been overtaken by the reality of the past four years, under a government that has done far more than neglect Arab citizens.
Neither party has committed to joining only a Netanyahu-led coalition, and Shas’s spiritual leader has indicated that he would be open to joining a government led by Eisenkot.
Netanyahu pulls ahead as of Wednesday morning • Arab parties predicted to reach a combined seat total of 19, complicating efforts to form a coalition
The 3.25% threshold is the minimum percentage of the national vote a party needs to win to be allocated any seats in the next Knesset.
In Umm al-Fahm, turnout reached 56.1% by 6 p.m., compared with a final turnout of 51.33% in 2022, an increase of 4.77 percentage points, with several hours of voting still remaining.
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