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High voter turnout boosts as Israel election results roll in

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High voter turnout boosts Arab parties as Israel election results roll in

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Updated 28 October 2026 09:12

AFP

October 27, 202623:42

Arab parties made significant gains, with Raam and the Joint List projected to win 17 or 18 seats combined due to high voter turnout among their base.

Eisenkot remarked that the poll results reflected a ‘complete lack of confidence’ in Netanyahu’s leadership, amidst a backdrop of notably high voter turnout.

Updated 28 October 2026 09:12

AFP

October 27, 2026 23:42

JERUSALEM: Arab parties made significant gains in the Israeli elections, with pollsters projecting Raam and the Joint List to win 17 or 18 seats combined, driven by high turnout among their base.

The first exit polls from Israel’s elections showed the opposition bloc with a slight edge over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s camp as voting ended Tuesday, but still shy of an outright majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

The country’s main pollsters — Channels 11, 12 and 13 — projected the opposition bloc to win 52 or 53 seats, and Netanyahu’s bloc to win 50, although his Likud would be the largest single party in the parliament, with 24 or 25 seats.

In the last election, Likud had walked away with 32 seats, enabling it to cobble together a coalition with smaller far-right parties after Netanyahu’s traditional allies balked at the corruption cases the premier was facing.

This time around, those mainstream right-wing parties, by and large, vowed to work with main challenger Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party to form an opposition coalition capable of unseating Netanyahu.

After the poll results were released, Eisenkot said they showed a “complete lack of confidence” in the prime minister.

While Raam and the Joint List do not belong to the opposition bloc, they have expressed openness to supporting it.

Tuesday’s poll was marked by high turnout, with many voters saying they saw it as pivotal for the country’s future.

Topics:Israel

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What we found (1)

Arab News, carrying an AFP report, describes gains by Raam and the Joint List on the strength of high turnout. In its own voice it calls them only "Arab parties" and their voters only "their base". The report never names the Palestinian citizens of Israel who make up that electorate. The election figures and Eisenkot's remark are reported straight and attributed.

  1. Erases a people's national identity

    Serious

    “Arab parties”

    Why this matters
    The headline names the winners of the turnout surge only as "Arab parties", an ethnic label given in the outlet's own voice.
    The impression it gives
    A reader takes the story to be about an Arab ethnic bloc inside Israeli politics, with no link to the Palestinian people.
    The context
    These parties draw their vote from Palestinian citizens of Israel. In the 2019 survey a majority of Arab citizens chose a self-description that included Palestinian. Arab and Palestinian identity coexist, but the headline gives the reader only one of them.

    How we know

    • Our analysis“In Sammy Smooha's 2019 survey of 718 adult Arab citizens of Israel, 61.9% chose a description of themselves that included Palestinian.”Palestinian citizens of Israel voted in record numbers
    • On the recordIn Sammy Smooha's April-June 2019 survey of 718 adult Arab citizens of Israel, including Druze and Bedouin, 61.9% chose a self-description containing Palestinian. This is historical survey evidence, not a 2026 percentage or proof of any individual's identity. Arab and Palestinian identities can coexist.newscord.org (opens in a new tab)

    Show it in the article

    Written straight

    Parties led by Palestinian citizens of Israel, Raam and the Joint List, were projected to win 17 or 18 seats combined, driven by high turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel.

How other outlets reported it

Our analysisPalestinian citizens of Israel voted in record numbers

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