Arab Parties Turn to Arbitration to Finalize Joint List for 2026 Elections

Ahead of the 2026 elections, the Arab parties in Israel have resorted to arbitration to finalize the composition of the Joint List, as first reported by Kan News on Monday evening. After several days of attempts to agree on the list order among Hadash, Ta'al, and Balad, the main dispute remained over a prior agreement between Hadash and Balad that reserved only the second and ninth positions on the list for Ayman Odeh and Balad's Mansour Abbas respectively. Although the parties reached consensus on the basic platform, efforts to agree on the list ranking failed. Consequently, Hadash and Ta'al sent letters authorizing the "Reconciliation Committee", a body of Arab intellectuals established in 2015 with the Joint List's formation to resolve internal disputes, to decide the list order. The committee is set to meet with party leaders and aims to deliver a decision within about a week.