Unraveling the Deadlock?

The Likely Impact of Israeli Palestinians in the Upcoming Election

Israel’s Arab/Palestinian citizens comprise 21% of the population and 12 of them sit in the current Knesset.  They have been members of all 24 Knessets since 1949, from a variety of parties over the years.  The most consistent source has been the Communist Party (currently known as Hadash), now in alliance with the Arab national party Ta’al.  Hadash is led by Ayman Odeh (retiring at the end of this session) while Ta’al, whose chair is Sami abu-Shehadeh is more radical, though less so than Balad, which did not make the threshold of 3.25% and thus is absent from this Knesset.  It should be noted that Hadash always reserves a safe seat for a Jew, so is not technically an “Arab party.”

The fourth significant “Arab party” is Ra’am (the United Arab List), which has been the political arm of the Islamist movement in Israel.  Since the movement is likely to be declared illegal, its leader, Mansour Abbas, is breaking Ra’am’s ties with it and reportedly will include a Jew on its list. Ra’am, unlike the other three, is culturally conservative, except, of course  on the issue of establishment of an independent Palestinian state next to Israel.  It supported the “Government of Change” of 2021-22, and explicitly states that is main focus is normalizing the position of Arab citizens within Israel, not changing the ethos of the state.

In 2015, in response to demands from Israel’s Palestinians, as well as to the Knesset hiking the minimum vote threshold to 3.25%, the four parties united in a “Joint List,” which broke apart before the next election.  In 2015, the Joint List won 13 seats, while  Arabs won seats on 5 other lists, including both left and rightwing parties. That represented the high-water mark of Arab Knesset membership to date, about 14%.

Last week, on January 22, surprising almost everyone, the leaders of all four Arab parties met in Sakhnin, an Arab town in northern Israel, and apparently recreated the Joint list.  “Apparently,” since  news reports are somewhat contradictory.  The Jerusalem Post reported a “commitment” to reestablishing” the joint list, while Raviv Drucker in Ha’aretz more cautiously reported on various possibilities, including  that it might be a “trap” for Mansour Abbas.  A webinar held by the Abraham Initiatives on Jan. 27 emphasized the Arab community’s intention to use it to make Israeli society more cognizant of the explosion of violence and murder in Israeli Arab towns that has been growing exponentially over the last few years. Few if any American Jewish outlets have even mentioned the meeting or its significance.

That’s unfortunate, because a new Joint List could well make a new government possible without a dreary succession of inconclusive elections, with Bibi remaining Prime Minister, as Israel experienced earlier this decade.  It could also make possible a government that finally recognizes that Israel cannot continue to claim to be a democracy when most representatives of Arab citizens are automatically excluded from joining any government coalition.

Sadly It also would almost certainly seal the fate for now of the repeated efforts to form an “Arab-Jewish” party, notably by Avrum Burg in 2022, and seemingly being replicated this year with support from some ex-Meretz leaders and others.  The fact is that the traditional model of separate parties tends to be favored by those leaders who have come up through them, even by most of those who ideologically would, at least in theory, favor such a party.  Meretz always had one or two (out of 5-6) Arabs in safe spots on its lists, but most of its leaders resisted calls by some to transform it into a “Jewish-Arab” party because it would have to, in effect, drop its identification with Zionism as an ideology in order to fully represent both Arabs and Jews.

The Political Context: What a Simple Arithmetical Calculation Will Easily Discover…       

Most “Jewish” parties – with the honorable exception of the Demokratim under Yair Golan – have already pledged not to form a government including an Arab party after this year’s election, even though all the anti-Bibi parties had been part of the Government of Change, which included Ra’am.  Benny Gantz’s “Blue and White” even prouced a scurrilous ad implying an Arab party  in the government would prevent an Israeli government from defending the country against an attack.  We can only hope that Bennett and the and the centrist leaders who have taken such a pledge will, if faced with an actual attainable government, will forget it, as politicians are known (or even expected) to do (“If you don’t like my principles, I have others.”).

Raviv’s article in Ha’aretz warns of the danger of Mansour Abbas and Ra’am being tainted by the radicalism of the other parties in the Joint List – and  now they are, at least nominally, conjoined with them.  This will obviously be exploited by Likud and its allies in the election campaign, but unless the electoral arithmetic comes out very differently from what polls show now, forming a government without Ra’am will be difficult, if not impossible, and permanently precarious.

Luckily, the flexibility of Israeli electoral law and practice provides a number of ways that alliances and coalitions can be structured to pretend to obscure unwelcome realities.  The Joint List can run as one party and then split up formally the day after the election.  Or, Abbas could repeat what he did in 2021 and pledge to support the government but not accept any ministries, thus posing the question: “Are you part of a government if you’re not part of it?

On  the other hand, we shouldn’t expect miracles from such a non-Bibi government, even if it‘s formed.  The genuine blessing for Israel is that he will be out of the office he’s burrowed into since 2009 (plus 3 years in the 1990s), which is longer  than anyone should hold the top executive office in a democracy.  An independent Inquiry Commission for October 7 will be stood up, eventually providing some closure. Perhaps a similar commission will investigate the epidemic of violence in Arab communities and make some significant changes that could impact longterm Arab-Jewish relations inside Israel.  Judicial and other structural guardrails may be restored and even strengthened.  Perhaps – and this is less likely – the extra belligerence/aggression Israel has assumed towards its neighbors, especially the new regime in Syria, could be relaxed.  Conceivably Gaza – or most of it – might be evacuated by Israel, but since half the government will be composed Greater Israel types like Bennett and Lieberman, that is highly speculative, though they might possibly be persuaded not for moral reasons, but perhaps in recognition of the crucial need to rebuild Israel’s battered standing in the world.

But it is sadly unimaginable that the tumors Israel has carried inside itself since 1967 will be excised by such a government.  Bennett and Lieberman and most of the “centrists” do not recognize that at the only way the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be ended is with the establishment of real, independent, Palestinian self-determination. We can hope that the  settler incitement and seemingly daily bloodshed and land confiscations will be tamped down – and see if Bennett and Lieberman do want to differentiate themselves from Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.  But even Yair Golan avoids calling for a Palestinian state.  So the most basic cause of continuing injustice by the Israeli state will not be done away with – unless some new deus ex machina takes the stage and demands it – and that depends more on the American than the Israeli elections.

One step at a time.