Ra'am leader, Mansour Abbas, says that both Netanyahu's camp and the anti-Netanyahu bloc are courting the Arab parties after the election results:
"Everyone is talking to us, not just from the 'Bloc of Change'."
Ream, the United Arab List, is a conservative Arab party with its roots in the southern branch of the Islamic movement in Israel.
It split from the joint list in 2021, arguing that Arab citizens benefit more from working within Israeli politics than remaining in permanent opposition.
It focuses on practical issues for Arab citizens such as crime, budgets, housing and infrastructure rather than Palestinian national demands.
In 2021, Abbas negotiated with Netanyahu before joining the Bent-Lapid government, making Ream the first independent Arab party in a ruling coalition in decades. This year she again ran separately and put Yoav Seglovitz, a former senior Jewish police officer, in second place on her list.
He signaled an openness to a government led by Gadi Eisenkot, but said that "there are no numbers for the government yet," and that he would only decide once a stable four-year coalition is in place.
With partial counts showing the Netanyahu bloc with about 55 seats and the Arab-led parties with about 16, none of the camps can reach 61 without the Arab parties.