At 11 in the morning last Thursday, plenty of the cafes in the city of Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv, were already packed. Over the clinking of plates amid the serving of hummus and orders being called out to the kitchen, one topic of conversation inevitably dominated. It was a day since election results had been announced, giving prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his Likud party a third consecutive term, and two days since Netanyahu’s warning that “Arabs were heading to the polls in droves”. In the final days of a tight campaign, Netanyahu also stated there would be no Palestinian state under his watch. Unsurprisingly, the mood of the Palestinian waiters and staff was downbeat.

“I’ve got my canned goods, my tape and my nylon sheets ready,” said Ibrahim, 30, with a sardonic smile, alluding to his preparedness for a future conflict he thinks could happen this summer.

Yet there was at least one reason to be cheerful. The Joint List, an unprecedented alliance of three Arab and one Arab-Jewish party, won 13 seats (440,000 votes), making it the third-largest party in the Knesset. This success sent a clear message that the Palestinian minority in Israel is willing to forgo its many differences to form a united front.

“It was a vote against [Avigdor] Lieberman,” one worker told me, referring to the outgoing government’s foreign minister, who campaigned on the transfer of Palestinian citizens out of Israel and championed the law that raised the threshold for parties to enter the Knesset from 2% to 3.25% of the vote – seen as a way to eliminate the small Arab parties and the impetus for the Joint List’s emergence. “I’m glad they got so many votes, but I don’t expect anything to change,” he said.

None of the cafe employees were willing to give their full name or place of work, worried that some Jewish customers would withdraw their business. “We got hurt during Operation Protective Edge,” said Muhammad, a 23-year-old college student. “People were boycotting the place, not soldiers actually, but right-leaning Jewish customers.”

Palestinians historically voted in large numbers for Zionist parties in the early decades of the state, but have largely voted for Arab parties since the 1990s. There is also a portion of the population that actively boycotts elections or just doesn’t show up to vote. The Joint List was a novel experiment and now the Palestinian street is taking stock.

“I voted with a heavy heart,” said Ayman Sikseck, an author who lives in Jaffa. “It’s a catch-22. On the one hand, you want to vote with your beliefs, but on the other hand it’s doubtful the party will be able to gain legitimacy in the current Israeli reality and also whether it can remain united and overcome its own internal divisions.”

The mood among activists was that voter turnout alone – 10% higher than the previous election, at 65%, and the highest since 1999 – was a massive achievement. “The list managed to organise the population on the basis of their national identity. It empowered the Palestinian minority, reminding them they are not irrelevant,” said Sami Abu Shehadeh, the secretary-general in Tel Aviv-Jaffa for Balad, one of the four parties. Although Arab parties have never been part of a ruling coalition, some had hoped that, if Yitzhak Herzog’s Zionist Union had won, it would form a centre-left coalition with the Joint List. Others judged that the Zionist Union would enter a national unity government with Likud, leaving the Joint List to lead the opposition – which would also be unprecedented in Israel. Neither scenario played out.

However, Abu Shehadeh was not disappointed that Netanyahu, known as Bibi, won. “Herzog is Bibi-light, he denies that we are Palestinians. Netanyahu’s win will increase international pressure on Israel to end the occupation,” he said. He was, however, disheartened by what he deems the failure to galvanise Jewish voters who believe in full equality. An estimated 7,000 Jewish citizens voted for the Joint List, compared with more than 10,000 for the progressive Arab-Jewish Hadash party in 2013. “We need to have a deep discussion about why that happened and how to change it,” he said.

Asma Aghbarieh-Zahalka, the head of the Da’am Workers party, an Arab-Jewish party that ran in the last election but did not make the threshold, believed the Joint List could not offer genuine change. “Why should I vote for them? Because they are Arabs, and I am an Arab? If we want to replace the irreplaceable [Netanyahu], we need a Jewish-Arab political breakthrough built by the political and social forces here that can offer an alternative for both peoples,” she said.

While the List did not get the support of many Jewish voters, it did get their attention. Ayman Odeh, leader of the Joint List, was familiar to Palestinians but virtually unknown to Jewish Israelis and was catapulted into Israel’s mainstream media: “I cannot be happy about Bibi’s win,” he said, “but our success proves we have legitimacy across the country. They tried to take us out of the political game, but we chose to participate. People need hope, and that is what we are providing them.”

Odeh believes non-violent protest is the key to change. He plans to organise a march from Nazareth to Jerusalem this summer to raise awareness about the party’s programme to promote greater equality between Jewish and Palestinian citizens. Although the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories along 1967 lines is one of the party’s main platforms, the List currently appears to be focused on improving the rights of Palestinian citizens.

As Mohammed got back to serving hummus, he told of a meeting at his college a few weeks ago in which Haneen Zoabi, a Knesset member, was attacked by rightwing Jews who stormed the stage and prevented her from speaking. During the chaos, he overheard some rightwing Jews saying: “Oh, the Arabs suddenly have balls now.” “But I always had balls,” Mohammed told me. “I just know when to pick my battles.”