Tuesday's Knesset elections produced results that could lead to an Arab opposition leader meeting with world leaders, a move that could mark a new history for Arabs in Israel.
According to the election results, the Arab-dominated joint list won 13 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, making it the third largest bloc behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, which won 31 seats, and his blue-white party. Benny Gants won 33 seats.
The result would make the joint list the largest opposition gathering in parliament in the event of a unity government, a possibility, although Gantz has rejected Netanyahu's initial call.
No Arab minority party has ever participated in any Israeli government, but if the chairman of the joint list, Ayman Odeh, 44, becomes the opposition leader, he will receive monthly briefings from the Mossad intelligence service and meet visiting state leaders.
Such a situation provides a platform for expressing Arab complaints of discrimination against them and a larger platform for Arab parties that disagree with parties that belong to the Jewish majority.
Odeh told reporters outside his home in Haifa, home to a mixture of Arabs and Jews in northern Israel, that it was an "important site" that no Arab had occupied before.
But even though the joint list will be the largest single bloc, analysts say other opposition parties combined will have enough seats to block his appointment by an absolute majority vote.
Aida Touma Suleiman, an Arab MP from Hadash's faction, said there was no way other parties could agree to appoint Ayman Odeh as opposition leader and "give our society recognition and legitimacy."
The joint list considered its strong performance on Tuesday a victory over what it described as "an unprecedented campaign of incitement against the Arab public" by Netanyahu and right-wing parties.
Arab Knesset members have repeatedly called for an end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the dismantling of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The Mossawa Center for Human Rights says that Israel's state budget often favors Jews, and allocates more money to Jewish areas and schools than to Arabic. About 47% of Arab citizens live in poverty.
But Netanyahu's Likud party disagrees, saying its 15 billion shekels ($ 4.19 billion) investment plan for the Arab sector during the last Knesset session "is the biggest such commitment in Israel's history," said Likud foreign affairs director Eli Hazan. .