Israel remains almost evenly divided over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fitness. Netanyahu avoids criticizing US-Iran deal, and claims the war’s main goals have been achieved.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Arab political parties failed to sign surplus-vote sharing agreements before the deadline for submissions passed; thus giving an edge to the bloc of parties led by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the coming November 1 election.

A pair of polls predicted a rise in Arab voter turnout, despite months of surveys predicting that less than half of the Arab community will participate in the November 1 election. The Israel Democracy Institute’s Special Arab Society Election Survey, found that among respondents, 50.5 percent said they are “certain” that they will vote.

Arab Israelis are largely enthusiastic about Arab parties joining an Israeli coalition government, with 69.5% supporting such a move, and 29% opposing it. Additionally, 75% responded that they would approve of an Arab MK becoming a cabinet minister. However, only 43% of respondents believed that Ra’am’s participation in the last coalition improved the lives of Arab Israelis.

The Arab nationalist Balad party refused a request by Hadash-Ta’al to sign a deal. Balad is not expected to pass the 3.25% electoral threshold needed to win Knesset representation, according to public opinion polling, meaning that the tens of thousands of votes for their party will likely go to waste.

Under Israeli law, the combined leftover votes go to the party in the agreement closest to winning another seat — and are often sufficient to add that seat to its tally, making the votes potentially decisive in a tight race.

And Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu has increased his spending in Arab communities in the final weeks of the election campaign, with statistics revealing a significant gap in expenditure on Arabic-language advertisements between Likud and the Arab parties. Likud received around 5% of Arab (including Druze) votes in the last election, more than any other non-Arab party.

Israeli Arab parties fare much........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)