Can a revived Palestinian Joint List reshape Israeli politics?
Arab-Israelis cast their ballots as they vote in Israel’s general election, in Kafr Manda, northern Israel on 23 March 2021.
Aseel Mafarjeh writes in The New Arab on 28 January 2026
Leaders of Israel’s four Palestinian political parties on Thursday reached a tentative understanding to reunify ahead of the next Knesset elections, which are expected to be held by October.
The document, signed on 22 January, stops short of a binding electoral pact but commits the parties to formal negotiations aimed at reassembling the Joint List, a slate that once consolidated much of the Palestinian vote in Israel before fracturing in recent election cycles.
Palestinian citizens of Israel represent around 20% of the population, the descendants of those who managed to stay on their land following the 1948 Nakba, or catastrophe, when over 700,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed and became refugees during the establishment of the Israeli state.
The signatories included Ayman Odeh of Hadash, a left-wing Jewish-Arab alliance with communist roots; Ahmad Tibi of Ta’al, an Arab nationalist party; Mansour Abbas of Ra’am, which represents Islamist voters and has a strong support base among Bedouins; and Sami Abu Shehadeh of Balad, a Palestinian nationalist faction.
Coming amid mass protests over rising crime and long-standing grievances about discrimination and marginalisation, the move seeks to unify a fragmented electorate and amplify Palestinian voices in the Knesset.
Analysts and party leaders alike confirmed to The New Arab that the alliance is a moral and national imperative, aimed at protecting rights, addressing security failures in Palestinian communities, and ensuring that Palestinian concerns take centre stage in Israeli politics.
The group gathered in Sakhnin, a Palestinian-majority city in northern Israel, on a day marked by a general strike and mass demonstrations across different communities. Tens of thousands had marched to protest spiralling violence and a mounting death toll, which saw 252 Palestinian citizens of Israel killed in 2025.
“The upcoming elections are not just about numbers,” Knesset Member Ahmad Tibi told The New Arab, “but a political and moral issue and a national duty to prevent the continuation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies and those of his extremist ministers.”
What is the Joint List?
The Joint List, first forged in 2015, represents both the promise and perils of Palestinian political unity within Israel. Born out of necessity after a rise in the Knesset’s electoral threshold threatened to marginalise smaller Palestinian parties, it united Hadash, Ta’al, Ra’am, and Balad into a single slate, transforming a fragmented electorate into the third-largest party in the parliament.