For now, though, the Joint List has injected a degree of enthusiasm into Israel’s Arab political landscape.

For now, though, the Joint List has injected a degree of enthusiasm into Israel’s Arab political landscape. Voting has always been a fraught issue: activists call for a boycott ahead of every election, arguing that participation in Israeli politics gives an implicit endorsement to Zionism. About 55 percent of the community voted during the last election, well below the nationwide turnout of 68 percent.

Party strategists think turnout could climb above 60 percent this week, and they are aiming for 15 seats in the Knesset, which would likely make them the third-largest bloc in Israel’s fragmented political landscape, behind Likud and the Zionist Union. Tamer Nafar, one of the founders of the popular Palestinian rap group DAM, released a song over the weekend announcing that he would vote for the first time. “Across the Arab world, sectarianism is raging, so we, the Muslims, and the Christians, and the Druze, we’re joining hands in one home,” he sang.

Odeh might consider sending flowers to Lieberman. Arab Israelis often cite the foreign minister’s overt racism as a reason for voting. Lieberman’s campaign slogan, “Ariel to Israel, Umm al-Fahm to Palestine,” is a blunt call for ethnic cleansing: “swapping” the Arab city into a future Palestinian state, in exchange for the Jewish settlement in the West Bank. He recentlyproposed beheading “disloyal” Arab citizens with axes.

Perhaps the ugliest moment was a small phrase he muttered during a televised debate last month. He launched a personal attack on Odeh, calling him a terrorist and asking why he wasn’t debating from “a studio in Gaza.” Odeh responded calmly, pointing out that Arabs make up one-fifth of the population. “For now,” Lieberman responded.

Odeh has cultivated a mild-mannered, friendly image, and avoids controversial issues. Asked about Hamas, for example, he stresses the need for Palestinian unity — and quickly pivots to talking about the economy, an issue that resonates with everyone, and about equality, often citing Martin Luther King, Jr. in speeches. He released a kitschy but well-receivedcampaign video last week that showed him winning over voters at a Shabbat lunch in Tel Aviv. When Amos Biderman, the Ha’aretz cartoonist, drew acaricature of the candidates dressed in costume for Purim — the Israeli equivalent of Halloween — Odeh was Mickey Mouse.

It seems to be working. Many Jewish Israelis, perhaps a bit patronizingly, describe him as likable, “the guy next door.” They contrast him with outspoken parliamentarians like Knesset member Ahmad Tibi and Hanin Zoabi, who was suspended from the Knesset last year because she refused to describe the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teenagers in the West Bank as “terrorism.” The wife of a Likud minister recently fretted on Channel 10 that Odeh was “a very dangerous person in my eyes, because he conveys a message to which you can connect as an Israeli.”

In a sharply divided electorate, the Joint List offers a rare hint of unity. But here, too, problems lurk. The coalition could fracture again after the election; party leaders duck questions about how long their shotgun marriage will last. “It took a lot of negotiation to get here, and right now we’re focused on the election,” Tibi said.

On the issues, the Joint List seems like a natural fit for a Herzog-led coalition, and their seats would be enough to ensure a center-left government. Historically, however, Arab parties have refused to sit in the government, arguing that they cannot join a Zionist cabinet, and cannot be responsible for settlement construction or another war in Gaza. The party says it will stick to this position, even though a recent poll showed a majority of Arab Israelis disagrees with it. “Every Israeli government, from Bougie to Bibi, they’re all the same thing,” said Abdullah Abu Marouf, a Joint List candidate, referring to Herzog and Netanyahu by their nicknames.

The most they will do, Odeh and others say, is provide backing from outside the government. There is historical precedent for this: After then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Accords in 1994, support from the Arab parties allowed him to survive a no-confidence motion.

If Netanyahu and Herzog are forced to form a unity government, a very real possibility, Odeh would become Israel’s first Palestinian opposition leader. He downplays that, too. “We shouldn’t be talking about Arab or Jewish,” he said. “We should be talking about citizens.”

* * *

The simplest way to sum up Isaac Herzog, after weeks of watching him on the campaign trail, is this: The man is the antithesis of Benjamin Netanyahu. He is an unlikely challenger, little known until last year despite his pedigree — son of former Israeli President Chaim Herzog, and grandson of former chief rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog. His fratricidal Labor Party has cycled through seven leaders during 15 years largely spent in the political wilderness. Yet for an exhausted electorate — weary of Netanyahu, who has loomed large for so long — he is the only plausible alternative.

Herzog’s demeanor is quiet and reserved, his voice reedy. The campaign hired a voice coach to improve his delivery, and now he tries to stride around the stage, punctuating his words with chopping gestures, but he still comes across as a bit soporific. He barely mentions Iran. There is no talk of existential threats or the Holocaust, no rhetorical bombast. He prefers to focus on gay marriage, solar energy, and making it easier to get a mortgage.

He even offers an olive branch to the Jewish diaspora, which has found supporting Israel increasingly troublesome in recent years, evidenced in theflood of anguished commentary by liberal Zionists. “The impact on the Jewish community is not discussed enough in the corridors and halls of power in Israel,” he told me. “I think it should be taken into account.”

For years, the left-right divide in Israeli politics was viewed through the lens of the Palestinian conflict. This is becoming a blurry, even meaningless distinction; the occupation will soon turn 50 years old, and most Israelis believe, to use the customary Hebrew birthday greeting, that it will live to 120. Herzog calls for engaging the Palestinians — but was quick to temper expectations of a speedy breakthrough. “I do not know what kind of mood I will be faced with from the Palestinian leadership, because they have fallen in love with unilateralism, but I believe Livni and I are the only ones who can rally the international community behind us,” he told me.

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