Thousands march across Israel demanding a Jewish-Arab coalition to oust Netanyahu

What did the marchers demand on Habima Square?

On Saturday evening, October 31, 2026, hundreds of Israelis filled Habima Square in Tel Aviv demanding a government built on a Jewish-Arab partnership. Around 500 people, according to Agence France-Presse, gathered at the square from about 7:30 p.m., carrying placards that read “Arabs and Jews will only win together,” “There is a majority for change” and “67 mandates for change,” before marching toward Rabin Square.

The Tel Aviv rally was the largest of a coordinated evening of marches called by Standing Together, the grassroots movement that campaigns for Jewish-Arab political partnership. Parallel demonstrations took place at Paris Square in Jerusalem (about 100 people, per AFP, with signs reading “67; United we stand, divided we get Bibi”); outside the Haifa auditorium; at the Performing Arts Center in Beersheba; and in the Triangle area between the Arab cities of Tira and Taibeh. Haaretz, which covered the rallies with its own reporters and photographers, put the nationwide turnout in the thousands.

The demand: opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot should convert Tuesday’s inconclusive result, 48 seats for anti-Netanyahu Jewish-majority parties plus a record 19 for the two Arab-led lists, into a 67-seat majority that removes Benjamin Netanyahu from power. Chants included “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies,” “No to racism, yes to partnership” and “The people have decided; Jewish-Arab partnership.”

The evening was not unopposed. More than 100 Netanyahu supporters staged a counter-protest on the sidelines of the Tel Aviv rally, according to AFP, Haaretz put their number at a few dozen, chanting “Bibi, King of Israel” and “The people demand new elections.” Police detained one activist on suspicion of disturbing public order. It was the second such mobilization in three days: on Thursday, about 200 people had gathered outside Eisenkot’s home in Herzliya with the same demand.

Where does the number 67 come from?

Tuesday’s general election, on October 27, left neither bloc with a majority in Israel’s 120-seat Knesset, where 61 seats are needed to govern. The final count, reported by Vietnam’s VNA news agency, gave the opposition 67 seats against 53 for the bloc backing Netanyahu. Inside the opposition’s total: 48 seats for Jewish-majority parties opposed to Netanyahu, and a combined 19 for the two Arab-majority lists, Ra’am (the United Arab List) and the Joint List, a record result that redrew Israel’s coalition map.

At the center: Gadi Eisenkot, 66, the former military chief who leads the Yashar party and is the opposition’s leading candidate to form the next government. Mansour Abbas leads Ra’am, the only Arab party ever to sit formally in an Israeli government (2021–2022), and says he would do so again. Yousef Jabareen leads the Joint List and told AFP he would back Eisenkot in parliament without joining his government, citing the Gaza war. Veteran Arab MP Ahmad Tibi says his camp is ready to back the opposition.

Eisenkot’s answer, so far, is a formula. On Saturday he reiterated he would only form a “Zionist government” whose members recognize Israel as a “Jewish, democratic and liberal state” and Hamas as a terrorist organization; conditions Arab leaders have previously refused. That evening he announced four principles he said would anchor any new coalition, open to any MK who accepts them.

The opposition is split: Yair Golan, leader of the left-wing Democrats, backs a government supported by Arab parties, calling exclusion racist, and met Abbas on October 29. Avigdor Liberman, head of the right-wing anti-Netanyahu Yisrael Beiteinu, has ruled out any coalition relying on Arab parties, even outside support.

Will Eisenkot actually pick up the phone?

Everything hinges on a decision Eisenkot has not made: whether to seek the mandate to form a government and, if he gets it, whether to negotiate seriously with Abbas and Jabareen. He has said he does not want a government dependent on Arab lists, but he has not explicitly rejected their external support; a deliberate ambiguity the marches were designed to break.

Nor is the 67 arithmetic guaranteed to survive the Knesset: Liberman’s veto strains the idea that all 48 anti-Netanyahu seats move as one bloc, and Eisenkot’s conditions strain it from the other side. Unknown: whether any Arab leader accepts the “Zionist government” formula, whether Jabareen’s outside-support offer, Gaza war cited, is the ceiling of what is possible, and what Netanyahu tries next.

Why has the arithmetic never looked like this before?

Because 19 seats is not a protest vote; it is kingmaker territory. Arab citizens make up around 20 percent of Israel’s population, and on Tuesday they converted anger at rhetoric targeting their community from Netanyahu’s hard-right government into the largest Arab representation in the Knesset’s history. For the first time, the road to 61 runs through the Arab lists, and everyone in Israeli politics knows it.

Netanyahu has answered by going on the offensive against the minority’s leaders; calling cooperation with Arab parties “a disaster for Israel” and accusing Arab politicians of Qatari backing and electoral irregularities, claims Doha rejected and Israel’s election referee twice dismissed. The street’s answer, from Habima to Paris Square: two decades of treating Arab votes as illegitimate are over.

The precedent exists, barely: Ra’am’s 2021–2022 stint remains the only time an Arab party has formally sat in an Israeli government. What the protesters are demanding is not a repeat of that fragile experiment but its normalization; Arab parties as permanent, legitimate partners in power rather than a one-off exception.

The 67-seat majority exists on paper. Does it exist in the Knesset?

67 is a maximum, not a bloc: it assumes all 48 anti-Netanyahu Jewish-majority seats and all 19 Arab seats move together; and Liberman has already said his party will not. Subtract Yisrael Beiteinu and the celebrated 67 dissolves before negotiations start, which is why Netanyahu’s allies sound relaxed and the protesters sounded urgent.

Eisenkot’s formula is the second strain. A “Zionist government” whose members must recognize Israel as a Jewish state and Hamas as a terrorist organization is, as drafted, a door built to stay closed: Arab leaders have refused those conditions before, and nothing in the last 72 hours suggests they have moved. His Saturday-evening four principles, open, he said, to any MK who accepts them, may be the bridge, or may be the same wall with better lighting. The exit polls that first showed the Arab surge did not show anyone’s red lines moving.

Netanyahu’s counter-strategy is clearer: make the Arab parties politically toxic before talks begin. The Qatar allegations, the “ disaster for Israel” post, the offensive against the minority’s leaders; each raises the price Eisenkot would pay for picking up the phone. The marches were an attempt to change that price from the other side: to make exclusion, not inclusion, the politically expensive choice.

What changes if Arab parties become permanent kingmakers?

If the 67 math ever becomes a government, even on outside Arab support, it rewrites Israeli coalition politics. The unwritten rule since 1948: Arab parties can vote but not govern. Ra’am’s 2021–2022 stint cracked it; a second, larger iteration would normalize the anomaly, and every future election would be fought with the Arab lists as declared kingmakers.

The second-order effects run outward. Arab capitals that signed normalization deals are watching whether Israel’s Arab citizens gain real governing power or remain a demographic fact with no ministerial address. Inside Israel, Standing Together’s mobilization, two coordinated national evenings in three days, suggests the Jewish-Arab partnership street has an organizational spine now, not just a slogan. And Gaza hangs over all of it: any partnership that cannot survive the war’s politics, as Jabareen’s caveat warned, will not survive the Knesset either.

What happens before Herzog’s Thursday deadline?

President Isaac Herzog is expected by Thursday, November 5, to hand a party leader the mandate to form a government; 28 days of negotiations, with a possible 14-day extension. Between now and then, the watch list is short: whether Eisenkot seeks the mandate and opens formal talks with Abbas and Jabareen; whether Liberman’s veto is final or negotiable; what Netanyahu’s next offensive against the Arab lists looks like; and whether Standing Together calls the street out again.

The marches bought the idea of a Jewish-Arab government one week of momentum. The Knesset will now decide whether that week becomes a precedent; or a memory.