Thousands rally in Israel urging Eisenkot-Arab deal to remove Netanyahu

Thousands of people have rallied in Tel Aviv to urge the Israeli opposition to make a deal with Arab parties to remove Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Protesters at Saturday’s rally told the AFP news agency this may be the “last chance for real change” and that Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is a “great manipulator”.

Main opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot has previously ruled out forming a coalition with Israel’s Arab parties, but a deadlock in Tuesday’s elections means siding with the parties could help him form a government.

“People really want this vote for change to work out, and they believe that… Gadi Eisenkot and other leaders of the Jewish-Israeli parties need to listen to their voice,” Al Jazeera correspondent Nour Odeh said from Ramallah on Saturday.

Counter-protesters also showed up to Saturday’s demonstrations, with Netanyahu supporters seen shouting their own demands that “Israel should not have a government with so-called terrorists”, Odeh said.

Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 seats in Tuesday’s elections, while Eisenkot’s won 48, meaning neither side can form a government in Israel’s 120-seat parliament alone.

Israel’s three Arab-led parties won 19 seats, having made significant gains in Tuesday’s election.

Nearly 840,000 people voted for Ra’am and the Joint List, a coalition of three Arab-led parties, a 64 percent increase from the last elections in 2022, according to the Central Election Committee.

The Arab electoral success means a coalition with Eisenkot would provide a comfortable majority of 67. However, for many in Israel, the idea of siding with Arabs is politically unpalatable.

Netanyahu has accused Palestinian-Israeli parties of “stealing” the polls and accepting funding from Qatar to do it. Qatar has rejected the allegations, calling it a disinformation campaign.

Odeh said that Israeli right-wing circles have described “the historic turnout of Palestinian Israelis as electoral terrorism, equating it to the October 7th attack”, when Hamas-led fighters stormed southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking hundreds captive.

“Palestinian-Israeli votes and voices” are under attack because they have a “prominent position” in deciding whether Eisenkot can form a government, she added.