Yousef Jabareen, the leader of the Joint List (the largest Arab-led faction in the Knesset) has ruled out joining Israel's next coalition. "I cannot take responsibility for military actions against our Palestinian people," he said in an interview with CNN. His position affects any attempt to form a government that would replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He has not ruled out every form of cooperation with the opposition bloc. On Monday, he told The Guardian that the Joint List could support a government led by Gadi Eisenkot from outside the coalition without formally joining it.
"In order to use our political power to remove Netanyahu's far-right government, we have said we are willing to consider supporting it from outside the coalition. This is an opportunity to change policies and attitudes, including toward the Arab community and the Palestinian people."
In the same interview, Jabareen said the party was not planning to sit in the coalition "for very clear reasons," adding: "As long as the occupation of our people in the West Bank continues, we cannot be part of a government."
The final count gave the six parties seeking to replace Netanyahu 67 of the Knesset's 120 seats. Those parties are Eisenkot's Yashar, Naftali Bennett's B'Yachad, The Democrats, Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beytenu, and the two Arab-led parties, the Joint List and Ra'am. The Jewish-led parties hold 48 of those seats and the Arab-led factions 19. Neither bloc reached the 61 seats needed to govern.
Reports of Likud's result differ. The Algemeiner reported that Likud finished ahead of its rivals with 53 seats. The Jerusalem Post, reporting the final count on October 29, put Likud at 27 seats as the largest single party, with Netanyahu's bloc as a whole at 53. The same report gave the Joint List 11 seats and Ra'am eight.
