Searching for political efficacy: the Israeli Arab vote in the 2019-21 Knesset elections

ABSTRACT Arab politics experienced dramatic upheavals in the four Knesset elections between April 2019 and March 2021. First was the jump from a significant low turnout among Arab voters in April 2019 (49.2%) to the highest turnout in two decades in March 2020 (64.8%), only to be followed by a historic slump to 44.6% in March 2021. The Arab parties went through a shaky period – from a divided political system that secured only 10 Knesset seats in April 2019 to a historic achievement in the March 2020 elections, when the Joint List won 15 seats, followed by yet another schism resulting in a total of 10 seats in the March 2021 elections. As such, the Joint List’s achievements did not herald the strengthening of the Arab parties’ influence in the Arab street but rather the increasing influence of the public on the political configuration of the parties wishing to represent it. The interrelation between the public and the parties is the outcome of profound processes of political change that Arab society in Israel has undergone over the past two decades. The article discusses these processes and their impact on the political behaviour of the Arab public.