On January 5, 2015, according to the press release still posted on the website of the Communist Party of Israel (Maki), former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg, previously a member of the Labor Party, had attended a meeting of Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) in Nazareth two days earlier.
The meeting was held on Shabbat and Burg was wearing his kippah.
He expressed his support for the Jewish-Arab front but was not certain whether he would run for a spot on their Knesset ticket.
Burg explained that he had traveled to the conference on Shabbat, contravening a religious prohibition, because advancing solidarity between Jews and Arabs was “a matter of life and death” that trumped the ban.
The former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel also called for “full solidarity” between Jews and Arabs in Israel.
In 2020, Burg was quoted in the Middle East Eye as saying: “The Jewish Center-Left realized that if they wanted to regain power, they couldn’t rely on 105 Jewish members of parliament – they needed all 120.”
This refers to the 15 MKs representing strictly Arab parties, whether Communist, nationalist, or Islamist.
In December 2022, Burg continued his path and joined Faisal Azaiza to become the co-chairs of the All its Citizens party, a Jewish-Arab political group.
The latest news is that Burg has joined the A Place for All of Us party as a co-chairman, an initiative of social media presence Alon-Lee Green, and will apparently run on its behalf in the upcoming Knesset elections.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Pollard will be joining Sharren Haskel’s Israel First Party.
Another politician from the core of Zionist politics is Yoav Segalovitz. He grew up in Tel Aviv and served in the paratroopers brigade in the IDF. He led the Israel Police’s Lahav 433 Unit as well as its Investigations and Intelligence Division. He then entered politics and was an MK in Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid for seven years.
According to Keshet Neev of The Jerusalem Post, in her August 13 report, Ra’am Party leader MK Mansour Abbas confirmed that they have discussed with Segalovitz the possibility of his joining the Arab party’s slate ahead of the upcoming elections.
Segalovitz has set conditions, so it may be premature to assume he will run on the Ra’am list and, if so, the party may alter its name to the United Arab-Jewish Party.
Jews have been members of Arab parties previously, but all have come from the ranks of the Communist Party, which, since the early 1920s, has sought to undermine Zionism on orders of the Communist International. There was even Moshe Sneh, commander of the pre-state Hagana, who became a Communist in 1954 and served as an MK for Rakah and then Maki.
On the other hand, very few Arabs have served as an MK representing a Jewish Zionist party – such as Yussuf Hamis of Mapam, and Walid Sadik of Meretz. The Likud non-Jewish MKs were all from the Druze community.
If Segalovitz does indeed enlist as a deputy to Abbas, it will be quite a remarkable turn of events. The question, though, is why?
Too big a sacrifice?
There is one conjecture by Yishai Friedman of Channel 14, writing in the Shvi’i weekly magazine. It follows the math. So far, all polls indicate that the parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even if they would achieve more seats than the current coalition parties, still cannot form a majority without the addition of Arab parties.
A yard-meeting with MK Naama Lazimi of the Democrats Party was held in Ofakim recently, and on August 14, Haaretz reported that one attendant, Prof. Yigal Schwartz, a literary editor living in the town, told her, “I think the Democrats need to extend a very clear hand to the Arab parties.”
“We can’t make do with 80% of the Knesset,” Schwartz concluded. That was Burg’s reasoning some six years ago.
On the face of it, it’s a logical chess move by Segalovitz – even if there is a more personal urgency.
Lapid’s Yesh Atid party seems to be a sinking ship. Poll numbers are down, and MKs are leaving for other platforms or exiting politics altogether, as several other MKs from other parties are doing.
His hook-up with Naftali Bennett is an attempt to revive the “Alliance of Brothers” from 2013 and their joint leadership of the government during 2021-22.
From a high of 28 projected seats at the end of last April, the party is closing in on only 15 at present, with Channel 13 awarding them only 13.
Segalovitz was positioned at 11 in the last elections, and perhaps he saw the proverbial “handwriting on the wall.” Survival is a major motivational factor in politics.
Working, however, on the presumption of sincerity, Segalovitz may affect a change in the attitude of Arabs toward Israel as the state of the Jewish people. That would be a good development.
Already, Ra’am leader Abbas has indicated his party will separate from the religious council that it is linked to. He also has claimed the party is not part of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.
There is, nevertheless, the matter of Aid 48, a charity linked to Ra’am and alleged to have financed institutions in Gaza thought to be linked to Hamas, according to the Justice Ministry.
The charity’s accounts were frozen, and courts ordered the charity’s formal dissolution.
Segalovitz may be sacrificing himself to provide a certification of political and cultural acceptance of an Arab party in government.
Whether that maneuver would succeed in any way is another matter entirely. Would the other Arab lists allow Abbas to get away with the move?
Would the public response applaud the new situation or would there be a right-wing version of the Kaplan Camp contretemps? Are there enough coexistence equivalence voters?
What Segalovitz is doing, though, should be made clear: to bring down Netanyahu, he and those behind his move, as well as those who would form a coalition with Ra’am, could be sacrificing the state’s security and identity by permitting a Trojan horse in through the gates.
The writer is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.