India, Oct. 29 -- The biggest story in the Israel elections, apart from the cloud over Benjamin Netanyahu retaining power, is the historic showing of the Joint List and United Arab List, or Palestinian, parties. Palestinian citizens of Israel have consolidated as a voting bloc. It looks unlikely that the rival coalitions led by Netanyahu's Likud and Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar will gain a majority of 61 seats, which would give the Arab parties a decisive say, if anyone is willing to ally with them.

Such a miraculous coalition between Arab and Jewish parties has happened only once before. In 2021, United Arab List (Ra'am) became the first independent Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition led by Naftali Bennett. The alliance fell ap...