Israel already shares its daily life between Jews and Arabs. Will political power also be shared?

Israel’s latest election has delivered a remarkable result. Arab-led parties have secured 19 seats in the Knesset, following record participation by Arab voters. With neither major political bloc holding a majority, the question of Jewish-Arab political partnership has returned to the centre of Israeli politics.

But perhaps we should begin with a simpler question: why should political partnership seem so extraordinary in a country where Jewish and Arab citizens already share so much of everyday life?

Walk into an Israeli hospital and you will find Jewish and Arab doctors, nurses and patients working together and depending on one another. The same is true in universities, high-tech companies and countless other workplaces. Jewish and Arab Israelis study in higher education together, share public spaces, enjoy the same restaurants and increasingly live in the same neighbourhoods.

This is not some distant vision of coexistence. It is already part of Israel’s reality.

Yet when it comes to the country’s political leadership, a different set of expectations often applies.

Israel’s Declaration of Independence promises complete equality of social and political rights to all its citizens. These are founding commitments, not new political demands.

The Bennett-Lapid government of 2021/22 offered an important precedent. For the first time, an independent Arab party, Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am, became a formal partner in a governing coalition. The arrangement was imperfect and short-lived, but it showed that parties with profoundly different identities and political outlooks could cooperate pragmatically on shared priorities.

It also placed practical concerns affecting Arab communities – including housing, infrastructure, economic development and organised crime – on the government’s agenda, backed by substantial funding commitments. Not every promise was fulfilled. Nor did the coalition resolve Israel’s deeper divisions. But its legacy was significant: Arab political participation could extend beyond opposition to a place at the decision-making table.

There are genuine disagreements about which parties can govern together, particularly after the trauma of 7 October and the years of conflict that have followed. Political partnership requires trust, shared responsibilities and difficult compromises. None of these concerns should be dismissed.

The Abraham Initiatives, has spent the last 14 years working to strengthen Jewish-Arab relations, equality and civic participation. We see daily evidence of both the challenges and the possibilities of a shared society.

Israel is a country in need of healing. Its citizens have experienced profound loss, fear and division. The relationships already being built in hospitals, universities, workplaces and communities offer a powerful model for rebuilding trust.

The election has not resolved the question of who will govern Israel. It has, however, made the question of who can share in governing, impossible to ignore.

The promise of Israel’s founding declaration remains an important barometer by which to measure of the country’s democratic temperature: a state in which Jewish and Arab citizens share not only the experiences and challenges of everyday life, but the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, including political partnership.

Neil Hamburger is Chair of Abraham Initiatives UK