For many years, I put my faith in Joint List chairman Ayman Odeh. In a 2014 Israel Studies publication, I predicted that he would gain leadership among the Arab constituency because Odeh championed constructive engagement and not the nationalist confrontational attitudes that flowed from the 2006 Future Vision statement. I watched approvingly how he navigated the Joint List to win unprecedented infrastructure, education and employment reforms that bettered the lives of his Arab citizens of Israel. Arabs were increasingly becoming interwoven into the fabric of Israeli society.
This integration was discomforting to nationalist, including Balad supporters, who longed for the self-determination envisioned in the Futures Vision statement. And then US president Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords threatened broader Arab solidarity with the Palestinian nationalist cause. Unfortunately, Odeh and the Joint List chose to make a priority at sustaining this link by strongly condemning the Accords. They encouraged an increasing Palestinian nationalist sentiment among Arab citizens of Israel to strengthen the belief that Arabs inside and outside the Green Line are one people and should rise and fall together. This approach led to a rising share of the Arab population of Israel identifying itself as Palestinian. Now the notion of self-determination has again arisen among Arab citizens of Israel, a term that signifies a colonial people who want to overthrow their oppressor and have autonomous institutions.
The desire to change this increasing normalcy of Jewish and Arab-Israeli interaction and the separation of concerns for the well being of Arab citizens of Israel from concerns for the Palestinians living in the occupied territories are important reasons why seemingly minor events exploded into violent confrontations in many of the mixed cities. Indeed, Hamas noted that one of its successes was ending these trends toward normalcy.
Regrettably, we now have a situation where the Joint List denigrates the unprecedented entrance of an Arab party into the ruling coalition, because the concessions won were negligible, and castigates Bennett for his views on the territories. As to Ra’am, the issue is not the specific concessions won, which may be more substantial than the Joint List claims, but the very inclusion of an Arab party in the coalition, being given a ministerial office. The New Israel Fund considers the inclusion “revolutionary.” One of its leaders, Daniel Sokatch said: “for the first time in Israel’s history, an independent Palestinian-Israeli party will sit in the government. This is a precedent that cannot be undone. Palestinian representatives will no longer be related to as token partners, but rather as power brokers.”
The “problem” for many on the left is that it is the wrong Arab party. Unfortunately, breakthroughs often come for the wrong individuals: Margaret Thatcher was the wrong woman to break the prime minister ceiling, Sandra Day O’Connor the wrong women to break the US Supreme Court ceiling, and now Mansour Abbas is the wrong Arab to break the Israeli ruling coalition ceiling.
Just as troubling is the Joint List’s condemnation of Bennett. Like Moshe Arens before him, Bennett follows the better ideals of Ze’ev Jabotinsky: a Zionist state will provide equal opportunity for its Arab citizens. Bennett was instrumental in Tsofen starting up its programs to improve Arab participation in the hi-tech sector. Today, Arab enrollment at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is the same as its share of the population, and Nazareth has become a hi-tech magnate. When head of the Education Ministry, Bennett guided the successful efforts of Merchavim to double the number of Arab teachers in Jewish schools, making sure supplemental funds were available to help overcome the transportation and cultural barriers they faced. And, of course, he was supportive of the groundbreaking infrastructure 922 bill that Sikkuy guided through the legislative process.
Indeed, Bennett’s views are well understood by the Palestinian Authority. Asked if he thought there was hope for boosting economic ties between the Palestinians and Israel under a Bennett government, a PA official replied, “Absolutely. It seems the man has been very successful in his business career and has adopted a liberal approach on economic issues. We are ready to work with any Israeli leader who will help us strengthen our economy.”
It is about time that the Joint List and its NGO allies acknowledge the benefits both Ra’am and Bennett bring to the table. How they can place a decisive role in enabling the Arab community to take the next step forward, moving beyond the impressive educational and occupational successes they have achieved.
The writer is the former president of Brooklyn College Hillel and author of Why the Jews? How Jewish Values Transformed Twentieth Century American Pop Culture (Rowman & Littlefield).