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3/18/15

Middle East - srael: In pictures: Bittersweet election win for Arab Israelis

Celebrations at the Joint List’s headquarters over becoming the third-largest political force in Israel after Tuesday’s elections were muted by concern over the re-election of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the prospect of business as usual.

By winning 14 seats in the new parliament, the Joint List alliance of three Arab-Israeli parties and Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), a Jewish-Arab leftist party, has nevertheless achieved its goal of becoming a significant political force in the country.

"It's the end of the dream for Netanyahu and [Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman of an Israel without Arabs. With the results from this evening we are now clearly present on the political map of the country," Imad Abu Ahmad, an architect and a Hadash activist, told FRANCE 24 in the great hall of Abu Maher in Nazareth.

The Joint List's new political weight in the 120-seat Knesset should allow this formerly marginalised community to advance its two main goals: to establish a real equality between Jewish and Arab citizens in Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank.

Read more: Middle East - In pictures: Bittersweet election win for Arab Israelis - France 24

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