Leaders of the impressive Jewish-Arab “Standing Together” movement have announced that a new party called “A Place for All of Us” to be led by movement leaders Rula Daoud and Alon-Lee Green will run in the upcoming elections. This has aroused a furious debate on Facebook and on the op-ed pages of Ha’aretz.

Standing Together leaders launch new Arab-Jewish party: ‘A Place for Us All’:(Photo: The Times of Israel)

While some people are celebrating the announcement, and one friend and colleague even says “now I finally have someone to vote for”, others are warning that the initiative will only waste votes that would have gone to one of the parties in the right-center-left opposition bloc. And it might also damage the non-partisan identity of the grassroots “Standing Together” movement.

There is no question in my mind that a Jewish-Arab party could be an important addition to the Israeli political arena.  It would be a realization of the principles of the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence that we are so far from today.  That document signed by the 37 members of “The People’s Council”, from the right wing Herut (forerunner of today’s Likud) to Meir Vilner head of the Communist Party, stated that “The State of Israel…will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all of its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel…It will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex: it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture, it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations”

These are the values that the current extreme right-wing government led by Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and their associates are busy undermining. They are trying to create a Jewish supremacist illiberal anti-democratic society as expressed in the ethnocentric 2018 Nation State Law and their attempts to undermine the independence of the courts and the freedoms of the press, education and culture, a militaristic “Sparta” rather than a democratic Athens in the words of Netanyahu.

Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu and Smotrich, the 3 musketeers destroying Israeli democracy. (Photo: The Times of Israel)  

Unfortunately, the Declaration of Independence has no legal standing, and one of Ben-Gurion’s major mistake is that he didn’t act on the promise contained in the Declaration to pass a constitution “by October, 1948”.

But just as the democratic forces in Hungary defeated Orban and began the process of rebuilding the country’s democracy, that is the goal that a new “Government of Change” led by the current right-center-left opposition, would be charged with.

So will the new “A Place for All of Us” party help to achieve this goal?

Netanyahu bears the major responsibility for everything negative that has happened since he returned to power in 2022. This begins with encouraging the transfer of $30 million a month by Qatar to prop up Hamas so that he wouldn’t have to negotiate with Palestinian Authority President Abbas over a political compromise. It continues with giving disproportionate power to racists Smotrich and Ben-Gvir beyond their actual strength within Israeli society, while bribing the ultra-Orthodox Haredim who do not share the burden of defense or contribution to a modern economy. All so that he could remain in power and out of jail.

Yes, as the ad says, “Netanyahu is the head. He is responsible. He should resign”.

However, I am also haunted by the responsibility of another political figure in Israeli society.

MK Merav Michaeli.

MK Merav Michaeli with a bust of her idol Rabin to her right: (Photo: Times of Israel)

The head of the Labor Party, who saw herself as a successor to Rabin, refused to merge together with Meretz in the 2022 elections. Meretz leader Zehava Galon was ready for a merger. But Michaeli suffered from hubris, or perhaps simply poor political judgement, and despite the urging of many veteran members of the Labor Party, refused to do it.

Meretz got 150,845 votes in those elections, and lacked just 4,000 votes to have four seats in the Knesset. Instead it got none while Labor got just four seats. If they had run together, there is a good chance they would have gotten at least eight seats and we wouldn’t have the anti-democratic government that we have lived with since the beginning of 2023.

Do Rula Daoud and Alon Lee-Green want to become the Merav Michaeli of the 2026 elections?

While it’s a beautiful idea, there is no sign that there is any chance that the new party can pass the necessary threshold of 3.25% of the vote.  All they would do would be to waste potential votes that would go either to the left-Zionist Democrats party or the predominantly Arab Hadash-Ta’al, Mansour Abbas’ United Arab List, or The Joint List if it is formed.

Although they shouldn’t have declared the unrealistic idea of running in the 2026 elections in the first place, the responsible thing to do today is to declare that they are dropping out, and to urge people to vote for one of the parties that does have a chance of being part of a “Government of Change” bloc.

The stakes are too high to be irresponsible, even with the best of intentions.