We are at a crossroads, and we may need Arab votes to save the country

Since the election, it’s been impossible to avoid the clamour for a unity government. Some call it a “broad Zionist coalition”, or a mamlachti government (it’s a word with no perfect English equivalent but it denotes patriotism and responsible statesmanship). Eylon Levy called for a “government of rescue”. What they all have in mind is a coalition which will bring together the mainstream Zionist parties, excluding the ultra-Orthodox, the Arabs and the far-right. Some include the left-most part of this spectrum – Yair Golan’s Democrats Party – others don’t. Some view Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionists as part of the beyond-the-pale “far-right”, others view only Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit as too extreme to be part of this Zionist dream-team. But all agree that it will be a unifying force, bringing Netanyahu’s Likud into government with (most or all) of the opposition parties who have boycotted him for so long.

The flaw in the plan is that even if Messrs Eisenkot, Liberman and Bennett could be persuaded that this is the best option for them given the election results, it seems to have been ruled out from the get-go by Netanyahu himself, even if he were the Prime Minister with no rotation. He has pledged to stick with his coalition partners of the last four years. And for one understandable reason. He is determined to continue his assault on the institutions that check his power, and for that he needs partners who will happily go along with such a plan.

So where does that leave the parties outside the Netanyahu bloc, who after all, do have a healthy majority of 67 to 53 Knesset seats? Netanyahu’s bloc lost. I know it doesn’t feel like if you’re in the other camp (like me) and hoped for a much better showing than the 48 seats for the ‘Change Bloc’. But in 2022, Netanyahu’s bloc of parties won 64 seats. This time around, 53. That’s a defeat in anybody’s book. A majority of Israelis voted against the coalition that gave us the judicial overhaul, October 7, ultra-Orthodox draft-dodging, a green light to Jewish terrorism, and Qatari agents in the Prime Minister’s Office.

It seems to me that these election results require a radical rethink from those of us opposed to Netanyahu’s far-right coalition. We are no longer in the world of left and right, as I wrote before the election. In the old days, the left could lose to the right, or the right could lose to the left, and there would be the chance in a few years for the opposition to be elected and to try to fix the other side’s mistakes.

In the old days of left-right politics this election result would almost certainly lead to Likud leading a national unity government, in coalition with its opponents on the centre and the left. That has happened more than once in the past. But that was when the Likud was a mainstream center-right party, based on the liberal-nationalism of Jabotinsky and Begin.. Today it is a hollowed out, illiberal party bent on weakening independent state institutions, kowtowing to the ultra-Orthodox and the racist far-right, and keeping Netanyahu in power.

And the stakes are now of a different order of magnitude. As I argued in my book published earlier this year, and in a couple of articles published in the weeks before the election, a return to power of the previous ‘full-right’ coalition would mean a return to an all-out assault on the judiciary, the free press, and fair elections. In fact, I was too optimistic when I wrote that the next Bibi government would use its power to put its thumb on the scales of elections. It looks like they did it already!

As Nadav Eyal reported, Bibi’s office employed politicised police officers to falsely arrest Ra’am activists on election day, and then broadcast propaganda on Channel 14 that Ra’am were stealing the election.

All of this is deeply troubling because the minister responsible for the police is Itamar Ben-Gvir. He likely knew, either briefed in advance or as it unfolded. It is also hard to believe Netanyahu was unaware when his own chief of staff placed the call. Combined with the election-day media blitz, this was unmistakably an attempt to tilt the outcome of Israel’s election by deploying the police, in violation of suspects’ rights and without a court order.

We are in an emergency situation. The priority now has to be establishing a government without Netanayahu or any of his far-right colleagues. The priority is to pass legislation that safeguards Israel for when/if the populist far-right return to power. We need constitutional safeguards. If not a constitution itself (far too heavy a lift in the circumstances) then the entrenching of Basic Laws, making them harder to pass or amend than regular laws. We need new Basic Laws, such as a Basic Law: National Service, bringing both ultra-Orthodox and Arabs into mandatory military – or civic – service; with clear, unavoidable penalties for draft-dodgers. A Basic Law: Declaration of Independence, enshrining the commitment to equality promised by our founding fathers as a constitutional right.

And, of course, we need a State Commission of Inquiry into October 7, at long, long last. This could all be done by a minority government, including Ra’am, and supported in the Knesset (but not as part of the coalition) by the Joint List.

I don’t come to this easily. Although I’m a strong believer in the cause of greater equality between Jewish and Arab citizens in Israel, I don’t have much truck for the accusations of racism leveled at anyone who has misgivings at partnering with the Joint List. It is a collection of defiantly anti-Zionist parties. It should be entirely uncontroversial that proudly Zionist parties would not wish to invite them into a coalition.

Ra’am is a different matter. Its leader Mansour Abbas has been a pioneer in leading Arab citizens into greater integration in Israel. He has already served in one Zionist government. He publicly declared – in Arabic – that he recognises Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. As reported in the Times of Israel, former Likud Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon spoke very favorably of Abbas

…Ya’alon, who says he knows the Ra’am leader both personally and professionally, sings Abbas’s praises, calling him a “courageous Arab Israeli leader” and noting that he has both recognized Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and supports universal recruitment, either to the military or in national service, two conditions set out by Yashar chair Eisenkot for working with any party.

He contrasts Abbas’s actions with those of far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, recalling how, during  the violent clashes in mixed Jewish-Arab cities in May 2021, he [Abbas] visited the sites of the violence “to pour water” on flames fanned by “Ben Gvir’s Kahanists.”

Unlike Abbas, who the Bibists call a terror supporter, Ben Gvir has been convicted several times for incitement to violence and terror. And it’s Ben Gvir, not Abbas, who infamously kept a picture of a mass-murdering terrorist hanging on his wall for many years.

In my book I termed last week’s vote “a hinge election”. We remain at a crossroads in Israeli history, and the path towards restoring decency, good governance and – yes! – the liberal Zionism of the state’s founding fathers, may well be paved with the votes of a record number of our Arab fellow citizens. Herzl, whose novel Altneuland prophesied a Jewish state where Arabs would have equal rights, and where a racist Jewish candidate is defeated in an election, would be proud.