Said Kabat, a 55-year-old pharmacist from the Arab village of Majd al-Krum in northern Israel, has boycotted every Israeli parliamentary election of his life. On October 27, he plans to vote for the first time, telling The Times of Israel he fears what another term for the current right-wing government would mean for Israel's Arab minority, which makes up roughly 21 percent of the country's population.
"A low turnout among the Arab population would embolden the far-right elements of the current ruling coalition," Kabat said. That concern has sharpened as far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have expanded settlement construction in the West Bank and turned more attention toward predominantly Arab areas inside Israel itself; in September, tensions boiled over in Majd al-Krum when Jewish Israelis attempted to establish an outpost on state land within the village's jurisdiction, and Smotrich has since unveiled plans to increase Jewish settlement in Arab-majority regions of the Galilee and Negev.
Turnout among Arab and Druze voters reached about 53 percent in the November 2022 election, well below the national turnout of roughly 70 percent, and closing that gap has become a central goal of grassroots organizers like 31-year-old Dana Salameh, who has been touring villages to make the case for voting. "Everyone has begun to see the danger very close to them if this government remains in power," she said. The Arab vote will again split between two lists this year, the Joint List and Ra'am, which together are projected in one Channel 12 poll to win 13 Knesset seats, up from 10 currently, with Ra'am, which made history joining an Israeli coalition in 2021, potentially positioned as a kingmaker once again.
Rising crime inside Arab communities is adding its own pressure: the Abraham Initiatives coexistence organization counts at least 175 violent-crime deaths among Arab citizens since the start of 2026, which Arab Israelis blame in part on inadequate policing under Ben Gvir, who oversees the police as national security minister. In Tayibe, dozens of members of the Abu Mtair family are awaiting word on demolition orders that have been temporarily frozen, and in the Negev, Israeli bulldozers recently razed about 80 structures in the Bedouin village of Al-Dahiya, leaving roughly 400 people homeless, including Adnan Abu Wadi and his four children, who called the timing of the demolitions a deliberate election tactic even as he said he expects the backlash to drive turnout higher, not lower.
