Arab Joint List No More

The Balad party, led by Sami Abou Shehada, decided it would not run in the upcoming elections together with the other Arab parties in a joint list. The party filed to run separately right before the registration deadline ended.

The disagreement was over the rotation agreement between Balad and Hadash-Ta'al. For the moment, it seems likely that Balad won't pass the electoral threshold, in which case the anti-Netanyahu block could drop below the number they need to keep Netanyahu from returning to the prime minister's office.

Reporter Amit Segal pointed out that PM Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) was so busy trying to get Labor and Meretz to merge, he completely missed what was going on in the Arab parties. Labor chief Minister Meirav Michaeli said that Lapid's attempt to merge their parties was a campaign ploy for Yesh Atid.