“After we get 15 seats, I am planning on sending flowers to [Foreign Minister Avigdor] Liberman,” Knesset member Jamal Zahalka, the Balad faction chairman, told Al-Monitor. "We owe him for this achievement. He united the Arabs.”

Ever since the die was cast in the Knesset Dec. 3 and elections were moved up to March 17, the Arab Knesset members have been trying to find the right formula for merging themselves into one party. The need for this arose when the vote threshold was raised to 3.25% at the initiative of Liberman, the Yisrael Beitenu Party chairman. Liberman argued that the change was needed to increase governability, via reducing the number of parties in the Knesset and decreasing the dispersal of votes. But many people argue — especially in the Arab public — that its objective was to harm Arab representation in the Knesset.

One way or the other, Liberman ultimately forced the Arab parties to unite, a process that was received enthusiastically in the Arab street. According to the polls, this is likely to generate a substantial rise in the sector’s voting turnout, increasing the number of Arab members in the Knesset.

Professor Asad Ghanem of Haifa University's School of Political Sciences said that the Arab street is keenly interested in a genuine unification of its elected officials. This has the potential of increasing the turnout in the Arab public from 53% in the last elections to 70%. This translates into three or four additional Knesset seats for the parties representing the sector; today, there are 11 for the Arab sector.