Former MK Yousef Jabareen elected leader of Arab party Hadash

Former MK Yousef Jabareen is elected leader of the Arab-majority Hadash party in internal primaries and will replace current chairman Ayman Odeh, who is resigning.

Jabareen’s ascent is part of a broader reshuffling underway within the Communist Hadash, as two of the party’s three current MKs in the party, which allied with the secularist Ta’al party for the last vote in 2022, prepare to leave parliamentary politics.

He previously served in the Knesset from 2015 to 2021.

Jabareen, a legal scholar and longtime Hadash activist, hails from the Arab city of Umm al-Fahm in the so-called Triangle region just south of the Lower Galilee, a densely populated cluster of Arab towns and villages that has increasingly pushed for greater representation within the party.

His rise to leadership marks a geographic and political shift for the left-wing party, which for years has been dominated by figures from the north and coastal urban centers like Tel Aviv and Haifa, the latter of which is also home to outgoing chairman Odeh.

Activists from the Triangle region have in recent years argued that the area, home to about 250,000 of Israel’s approximately 2 million Arabs and heavily affected by the violent crime epidemic plaguing Arab society, has not been sufficiently represented in the party’s leadership. Jabareen’s election is expected to increase activity and voter participation in the national elections in the important region.

לאחר ספירת תוצאות הסיבוב הראשון:
מועצת חד״ש בחרה בד״ר יוסף ג׳בארין למקום הראשון ולראשות רשימתה לכנסת. pic.twitter.com/vEL4jGciK4

— חד״ש Hadash (@Hadash_org) May 16, 2026