Is­rael’s lat­est gen­er­al elec­tion ap­pears set to pro­duce an­oth­er coali­tion gov­ern­ment, a fa­mil­iar out­come in a coun­try where no sin­gle par­ty has tra­di­tion­al­ly found it easy to gov­ern alone. Yet, this elec­tion may al­so have cre­at­ed an un­ex­pect­ed open­ing, how­ev­er mod­est, for a dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal fu­ture.

Ex­it polls sug­gest a nar­row lead for Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu’s Likud Par­ty over the op­po­si­tion Yashar Par­ty led by Ga­di Eisenkot. Nei­ther ap­pears like­ly to se­cure the 61 seats need­ed for a ma­jor­i­ty in the 120-mem­ber Knes­set, mak­ing coali­tion-build­ing in­evitable.

At the cen­tre of that process is an Arab po­lit­i­cal bloc pro­ject­ed to win 16 or 17 seats, po­ten­tial­ly giv­ing it un­prece­dent­ed in­flu­ence in de­ter­min­ing who forms the next gov­ern­ment.

Coali­tion pol­i­tics are noth­ing new in Is­rael. They have long re­flect­ed the di­ver­si­ty and com­plex­i­ty of Is­raeli so­ci­ety. What would be new is the prospect of one of the ma­jor par­ties re­ly­ing on Arab sup­port to se­cure pow­er.

Through­out the cam­paign, both lead­ing par­ties dis­missed such a pos­si­bil­i­ty. Ne­tanyahu de­scribed the idea in harsh terms, while Yashar al­so re­ject­ed any in­ten­tion to pur­sue such an arrange­ment. Yet, elec­tions of­ten pro­duce re­al­i­ties that cam­paign slo­gans can­not ac­com­mo­date. The de­sire to gov­ern has a way of re­shap­ing po­lit­i­cal cal­cu­la­tions.

On many of the is­sues that dom­i­nate Is­raeli pol­i­tics, the dif­fer­ences be­tween the two main par­ties are nar­row­er than their ri­val­ry sug­gests. Both place se­cu­ri­ty at the cen­tre of their plat­forms. Both ad­vo­cate a strong Is­raeli state. Both re­main deeply cau­tious about a two-state so­lu­tion to the Pales­tin­ian ques­tion. Their shared po­si­tions re­flect just how dif­fi­cult mean­ing­ful move­ment on the re­gion’s most con­tentious is­sues has be­come.

Sev­er­al out­comes are pos­si­ble.

Is­rael could face yet an­oth­er pe­ri­od of po­lit­i­cal dead­lock and fresh elec­tions. The two ma­jor par­ties could choose to work to­geth­er in a grand coali­tion. Or one could de­cide that co­op­er­a­tion with Arab rep­re­sen­ta­tives is prefer­able to pro­longed in­sta­bil­i­ty.

Such a de­vel­op­ment would not, by it­self, re­solve decades of con­flict be­tween Is­raelis and Pales­tini­ans, or end the broad­er ten­sions that con­tin­ue to desta­bilise the Mid­dle East. But it could cre­ate space for greater di­a­logue and a more in­clu­sive ap­proach to gov­er­nance. Those are small steps, but his­to­ry shows that en­dur­ing peace is of­ten built through in­cre­men­tal change rather than dra­mat­ic break­throughs.

Eu­rope of­fers a re­minder that even the most en­trenched con­flicts can evolve. Cen­turies of war­fare even­tu­al­ly gave way to co­op­er­a­tion and co­ex­is­tence among states once locked in seem­ing­ly end­less hos­til­i­ty.

The ob­sta­cles to peace in the Mid­dle East re­main for­mi­da­ble. Dis­trust runs deep, and re­cent vi­o­lence has hard­ened at­ti­tudes across the re­gion. Yet, pol­i­tics re­mains the art of the pos­si­ble.

If this elec­tion en­cour­ages greater in­clu­sion and di­a­logue, it may of­fer a small but mean­ing­ful open­ing to­wards a more peace­ful fu­ture.