Mixed feelings of victory and a missed opportunity, happiness and frustration, pride and disappointed accurately describe the emotions at the headquarters of the Arab Joint List with the airing of the exit polls at 10 p.m. local time on March 2. The high turnout of Arab voters, probably around 69%, brought the Joint List to the unprecedented achievement of 15 Knesset seats (according to Channel 11 and  Channel 12 exit polls) or 14 seats (as per the Channel 13 exit polls). There is thus no doubt that in the 2020 elections, the alliance of four Arab parties managed to restore the trust of the Arab community in Israel’s political system, which has done its best to alienate the 21% minority and continues to do so. The last time that happened was in 1999, when Arab voter turnout almost equaled the general turnout (75% compared to 78.7%). The high March 2 turnout attests to a healing of the wounds inflicted by the October 2000 rioting, in which police shot dead 12 Israeli-Arabs and one non-Israeli Palestinian, and an end to the subsequent Arab voter boycott.

“Arab society has taken a big step and heeded the call to come out and vote,” the Arab Joint List chair, Knesset member Ayman Odeh, said with satisfaction. However, his fellow Knesset member Yousef Jabarin also expressed disappointment. “Arab voters came out en masse to the ballot boxes and expressed their confidence in us. We are proud of our growing strength and will stand up to the radical right and its destructive initiatives. Blue and White did not present a real alternative, did not offer hope and its dreams of a 'Jewish majority' were a failure in the making,” he tweeted.

The Joint List knows it cannot prevent the formation of a narrow-based right-wing government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Even with its 15 seats in the 120-member legislature, the Arab party will be unable to block the resurgent Netanyahu. The incitement and discrimination against the Arab community will persist, so that in point of fact nothing will change. In other words, the Knesset members of the Joint List will not be able to do anything for their voters with their newly gained 15 seats that they could not do with the 13 they garnered last time, in September 2019. Thus, the blame they attribute to the centrist Blue and White opposition party, and especially to its chair, Benny Gantz, is justified. The Joint List carried out its mission with success and improved its showing at the polls, which under different circumstances could have determined the balance of power between the right-wing ultra-Orthodox bloc of parties and the center-left, or at least blocked a Netanyahu-led coalition. However, Blue and White’s declared rejection of any partnership or relationship with the Joint List in a bid to curry favor with centrist and right-wing voters, and the scandalous campaign it conducted as a result, lost it the elections.

Joint List leaders, especially Odeh and Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, led a pragmatic line designed to bring Arab society into the fold of Israeli politics as an accepted, inherent part of Israeli society. They worked hard to offer hope of change, primarily an end to the Netanyahu regime, but ultimately failed in their task. While the Joint List won the battle, it lost the war, as it was left without partners. Netanyahu is not going home. Even if all 15 Arab Knesset members recommend to President Reuven Rivlin that he task Gantz with forming the next government, they will not bring about change and replace the right-wing government.