Three of Israel's main Arab-majority parties have announced plans to reunite under a revived Joint List alliance ahead of upcoming elections, amid growing fears among Palestinian politicians in Israel over what they describe as intensifying political persecution and the rise of the far right.
Hadash, Ta'al and Balad said on Sunday they had agreed to form a joint slate and called on the United Arab List (UAL), led by Mansour Abbas, to join the alliance.
UAL later signalled openness to participating, but stressed that any alliance must preserve each party’s "platform, freedom, and dialogue with its voters" without restrictions on future political manoeuvring, including potential coalition negotiations.
The four parties previously ran together under the Joint List banner in the 2015 and 2020 elections, becoming one of the most significant political blocs representing Palestinian citizens of Israel.
However, ideological divisions, disputes over strategy and disagreements about engagement with Israeli governments later fractured the alliance.
The renewed push for unity comes amid mounting concern among Arab politicians over the political climate in Israel following the Gaza genocide, annexations in the West Bank and the continued dominance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition.
"This is what brought us to reconsider uniting the four different parties," Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh told The New Arab .
"In the past, they were a little bit ashamed of their racism," he said. "But with this very fast shift towards the extreme right and fascism, they are now becoming proud of their racism."
Abu Shehadeh said both Netanyahu’s coalition and opposition figures, such as former prime minister Naftali Bennett, were working against Palestinian political consolidation inside Israel.
"Netanyahu’s coalition and Bennett’s opposition are both making great efforts to prevent our ability to unite and for Palestinians to support their own political interests," he said.
The parties have framed the alliance as both an electoral strategy and a defensive political response to what they describe as growing efforts to marginalise Arab political participation.
In a joint statement on Sunday, the three parties warned of "existential dangers" facing Palestinian citizens of Israel and cited attempts to disqualify Arab parties and restrict their political activity.
Speaking to The New Arab , Hadash lawmaker Ofer Cassif said the alliance was necessary to confront what he described as growing authoritarian trends inside Israel. "From day one, we said that the only way to fight fascism, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the other crimes this Israeli government is guilty of is by joining forces and achieving major success in the elections," Cassif said.
Still, Cassif stressed that opposition to Netanyahu did not mean support for Bennett or the wider Zionist opposition.
"Obviously, we will do our best to get rid of this fascist and genocidal government," he said. "But that does not mean we will embrace Bennett."
Cassif argued that while Arab parties may seek to influence the makeup of a future coalition, they would judge any potential government according to its policies rather than personalities.
"The most important thing is not who leads a particular list, but the guidelines a coalition agrees upon," he said.
He added that Hadash could not support policies tied to "the continuation of the occupation" or measures undermining civil rights inside Israel.
The renewed alliance talks also come amid concerns over declining Arab voter turnout in recent elections, which many Arab politicians believe has weakened Palestinian political influence in the Knesset and strengthened the Israeli right.
Abu Shehadeh said the reunited alliance could significantly expand Arab political leverage.
"We could win 15 or 16 seats," he said. "That would significantly increase our political power."
Cassif also warned that a defeat for Netanyahu’s camp could trigger attempts to delegitimise election results.
"There’s another very big danger - that if those fascists lose, they may say the elections were stolen," he said, warning of "a Capitol Hill scenario, only worse".
Despite the renewed momentum, major disagreements remain between the parties, particularly regarding Mansour Abbas’s pragmatic approach to coalition politics and whether the alliance should function as a purely technical electoral arrangement or a broader ideological project.
Balad has pushed for a more explicitly political framework centred on Palestinian national identity and opposition to the occupation, while UAL has prioritised maintaining flexibility to negotiate with future governments.
Still, party leaders increasingly appear to believe that remaining divided risks further weakening Palestinian political representation at a moment they see as politically existential.