Workable insurance for Israel's future

Israel's Oct 27 election has produced an awkward result: for incumbent PM Benjamin Netanyahu, for challenger Gadi Eisenkot, and for Israel. With Netanyahu's bloc securing 53 Knesset seats against Eisenkot's 48, the 19 seats won by 2 Arab-Israeli parties are now pivotal. President Isaac Herzog has accepted the results, rejecting Likud's calls for election fraud, and begun coalition consultations.

Ra'am, led by Mansour Abbas, has indicated support for Eisenkot. Yousef Jabareen-led Joint List should follow. Forming a majority needed to keep Netanyahu out would be a considerable service to Israel, including to Israelis who regard Arab politicians as political contaminants. In the next few days, both Arab parties should back Eisenkot, even if that requires explicitly condemning Hamas' Oct 7 attacks on Israel. Eisenkot is no peacenik. The former IDF chief's son was killed in the 2023 Gaza War. An Eisenkot-led government that includes Arab Israelis - who form 21% of the population - would strengthen Israel's domestic legitimacy, complicate extremist recruitment narratives, and provide a moral and political defence.

Even if Netanyahu, itching to pull Israel back into an Iran war, is junked by Likud, the party's political instincts, nationalist dependencies and institutional habits are unlikely to be sufficiently de-Netanyahu-ed, at least in the near future. Sure, an Arab-inclusive coalition would be difficult, quarrelsome and vulnerable. But it would also establish something valuable that can stabilise Israel and the region: a precedent for shared citizenship and power. Israel needs more than a government minus Netanyahu. It needs a government that places the country's future - and security - before any individual leader's political survival.