After Israeli political parties entered another round of negotiations to form a government, the joint list, a coalition of four Arab parties, became able to play the role of kingmaker. For the first time in Israel's history, the Arab minority, which constitutes 20% of the population, can play an important political role in the Israeli parliament (Knesset).
After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a coalition government last September, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin asked Benny Gantz, head of the White Blue Party, to form a government. The man was tasked with assembling a coalition of 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
The situation is positive
Gantz said he would not involve the Arabs in any alliance, but now began negotiating with the joint list, and met with its representatives on October 31 last year. The list's leaders, Ayman Odeh and Ahmed Tibi, told the press that the situation was positive during the meeting, which addressed "issues of concern to the Arab community and the focus on civil affairs." 76% of Arab citizens support the entry of the list into the Israeli government, according to Gutman Center for Polls Opinion and political research, Barcelona-based Spanish.
There is only one precedent in which Arabs cooperated with Jews in Israel, when the Arabs supported the center-left government, headed by Yitzhak Rabin, in the 1990s. But over the past decade, when Netanyahu headed the Israeli government, there has been little trust between Arabs and Jewish parties.
Gantz, who wants to form a center-left government, is unlikely to have an easier job than Netanyahu, and if he fails, there will be a third election within a year. To avoid this scenario, Gantz could choose to form a minority government based on an agreement with the joint list that could support his government without participating, as it did with Rabin in the 1990s.
Even with external support from the joint list, Gantz could be incapable of forming a government.He needs the support of parties, some of them extremist, that remain pro-Netanyahu, as well as the independent politician, Avigdor Lieberman, who refuses to enter a government of ultra-Orthodox.
In addition, Gantz seems to think that simply imagining that he is open to the possibility of relying on Arab support could cause political damage if Israel runs a third election. It is unclear whether Gantz's negotiations with the Arabs are a tactic, or a genuine effort to push them into the political circle.
precedent
Nevertheless, the mere meeting of Gantz with the Joint List is a precedent that could shape the future of political participation for the Arab component, which he feels is ostracized by Israel's political system. Arab citizens of Israel have long faced inequality. Half of the Arabs live below the poverty line, and government funding is not evenly distributed among Arab and Jewish municipalities. They live in a complex identity. Although the Israeli press refers to them as "Israeli Arabs," some prefer to refer to them as Palestinian Arabs with Israeli citizenship, or Israeli Palestinians for short.
Thabit Aburas, co-director of the Abraham Fund, a group that promotes Arab-Jewish coexistence and equality, said this level of participation represented a "paradigm shift" in the way Palestinians and Israelis participate in politics. "For the first time, Israeli Arabs are actively participating in the political process, and for the first time they can have the power and influence to bring about change in Israeli society, for the benefit of both Arabs and Jews," he said.
Ahead of the September 19 elections, Arab politicians were worried that Arab citizens would not take part in the elections, with only 50% of them taking part in the previous elections.
Many Arab citizens felt absurd within the Israeli regime, as they had little political capacity to change their personal or collective circumstances. There have been many voices in the Arab community calling for a boycott of elections this year. In January this year, writer Salman Masalha wrote in Haaretz that the presence of Arab parties in the Knesset "serves the idea of a mulberry paper that covers the nudity of so-called Israeli democracy."
It was the joint list that persuaded Arab voters to participate in the September elections, and there were significant differences between the parties that make up the “joint list”. A socialist economy, in addition to workers' rights, is the Arab Movement for Change, primarily concerned with the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and the United Arab List, a political branch of the Islamist movement in Israel.
The JMP won 13 seats in the 2015 elections, but these parties ran separately last April, owing to a major ideological dispute. "The public punished them by refusing to vote for them at all," Aburas said, adding that unlike the 2015 and April elections, the joint list platform in the September elections focused on issues that fundamentally affect their constituents, such as daily life, crime, poverty and lack of housing.
"Arab politicians may have focused all their struggle for the Palestinian national cause," said Aida Yuma Suleiman, a member of the fifth Arab seat. "We are still committed to our national agenda as Palestinians. We support our brothers and sisters in the West Bank and Gaza. "Life has become very difficult for the Palestinian citizens of Israel, so we need to struggle to find solutions to our problems, and that's what our voters want."
Pina Prince-Jason is editor of Haaretz.
Political engagement
The scene of support for the United Arab List reveals something that is largely about the generation of Palestinian citizens of Israel. "They are still willing to engage in resistance through political engagement," said Thabit Aburas, co-director of the Abraham Fund, a group that promotes coexistence and equality between Arabs and Jews. "Until now, Arabs in Israel have complained." Of their situation. "Now they have gone from winning politics to engagement."
Among the generation of Israeli-Palestinian political engagement, a number of activists and artists, such as feminist filmmaker Maysaloun Hammoud, have been an important part of the Go to Elections effort, attributing this change to changing identities. "Our parents and our generation struggled to survive economically. After the occupation of the rest of Palestine by Israel in 1967, they struggled to assert Palestinian identity," she said. "But we were born in this state, and we are not prepared to tolerate discrimination against us, both in Israeli Jewish society and in society." Hammoud spoke about cases of discrimination against Palestinians, especially the law that says Israel is Jewish. "We have turned this law into second-class citizens, and this motivated people like me to vote instead of boycotting," she said.
Feminist activist Maysoon Hadid said she understood why Palestinians were boycotting the elections because she knew their election had no meaning. "But the real opposition means we have to take advantage of any tools we have," she said.
Unlike the ballot box, Palestinians see other forms of resistance through engagement, and some argue that this involves using the institutions of the State of Israel to advance their goals, even if it means resisting other Arab citizens. For example, while the election campaign was gaining momentum in August, the governor of Umm al-Fahm, a Palestinian-populated city in northern Israel, canceled a concert planned for Palestinian singer Tamer Naffar because of the contents of his songs. Navar went to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which filed a grievance against the governor's decision. The court sided with Navarre and overturned the governor's decision.
Some have criticized Nafar's grievance on the grounds that it legitimizes Israel as a Jewish state. But attorney Hassan Jabareen, who runs Adalah's Center for Palestinians, said resorting to the court did not legalize racial discrimination against the state.
Al-Hadid said resistance through engagement was all that Palestinians had to do now, in the absence of an alternative political framework.
Unlike the ballot box, "Israeli-Palestinians" see other forms of resistance through engagement. Some argue that this involves using the institutions of the State of Israel to advance their goals, even if that means resisting other Arab citizens.