Arab-led parties could decide the Israeli election, if anyone would partner with them
The most striking detail here is that both sides would rather risk another election than sit at a table with Arab-led parties. This is a structural refusal, and it turns the whole democratic arithmetic into a farce. I keep thinking about how in most systems, a party that can break a tie becomes the most sought-after partner, not the most shunned. Here, the opposite happens, and the system just spins its wheels.
I'd want to know what the Arab parties themselves are offering, beyond the obvious. Are they asking for policy concessions, or just basic recognition? Because if the price of entry is simply being treated as legitimate, that's a low bar, and the fact that it's too high for everyone says more about the mainstream than about them. The gridlock might be the only honest outcome, a kind of political entropy that forces everyone to confront the contradiction. I don't have a solution, but I suspect the next election won't solve it either, just reshuffle the same paradox.