The next general election in Israel is due no later than October next year, though it may be held earlier to suit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s craving to ensure the best possible chance of him forming the next coalition government. Opinion polls are consistent in forecasting that the parties currently in opposition, or those expected to form before the next election, are likely to win more seats than those in the current government.
However, there is a sting in the tail: the disturbing anomaly that the parties that almost exclusively represent the Palestinian citizens of Israel are not included in the calculations of Zionist parties in forming the next coalition government, leaving them and their voters as political pariahs in their own country.
Except for the short-lived Bennett-Lapid government, which included one of the Palestinian parties, Palestinian ministers have served in the Cabinet only if they were elected on the list of a Zionist party. This discriminatory approach perpetuates the marginalization of the 2.1 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up 21 percent of the total population.
The vast majority of Jewish Israelis would even refuse to acknowledge them as Palestinian, only referring to them as “Arab-Israelis.” To recognize the Palestinian identity of their fellow citizens would equate, for the majority of Israeli Jews, to recognizing that they also have the same rights as Jewish people in this piece of land. Moreover, if they are Palestinian, the tag of being disloyal is automatically added. This approach reflects a paradox: utter paranoia combined with a sense of supremacy.
In a democratic system, when members of one part of society — in this case, a quite significant minority — are excluded from the executive branch in perpetuity, they are also deprived of the ability to influence the ethos and direction of their own country and to protect their rights and interests. By that, an entire community is denied equal access to resources the rest of the population enjoys.
Morally, there is only one definition of this behavior: racism. On a practical level, the blanket boycott of all Palestinian parties, which typically gain 10 to 15 seats in the Knesset, hands the right victory time and again. There is an absurd demand for Palestinians who are citizens of Israel not only to be loyal, which they are, but also to subscribe to the Zionist ethos of the society, something that no Jewish person is required to do. It is more outrageous when, in practice, they do not enjoy the same rights and privileges.
It is not only the right-wing parties that exclude the Palestinian parties from participating in a coalition, but also the more centrist ones and, beyond comprehension, those who call themselves leftist. By taking this approach, they betray their own declared values, such as building social cohesion and integration across all segments of society, not to mention harming their chances of forming stable coalition governments.
No one employs the dog whistle against Palestinian citizens and their elected representatives in the Knesset more viciously or, unfortunately, effectively than Netanyahu. In his latest deplorable attempt, he announced last week that he intends to “complete the process” of banning the Muslim Brotherhood in Israel. This sounds like a coded message to effectively target the Islamist United Arab List party, which won five seats in the last general election. It is a blatant attempt to associate this party, which was one of the most constructive and effective members of the previous coalition, with Hamas, which is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In the toxic environment since Oct. 7, when it should be of paramount importance not to drive a further wedge between Jews and Palestinians, Netanyahu is cynically doing the exact opposite as he customarily tries to engineer the results of the next election through toxicity and division.
One of the most acute issues in the Palestinian communities in Israel today is an unprecedented surge in violent crime. The number of homicides is at a record high. Already this year, 237 people have been murdered within this community. At this rate, 2025 might end up as the worst ever year in this regard. Many of those who lost their lives have been bystanders, among them children and women, caught up in gang wars.
The situation has deteriorated, not astonishingly, since the current coalition government was formed and Itamar Ben-Gvir became the minister in charge of the police. To put it bluntly, he and his followers simply do not care when Palestinians kill Palestinians. To add insult to injury, in most cases — in contrast to what happens in the Jewish communities — no one is charged, let alone convicted, for these crimes. There is a strong element of deliberate neglect, which is another reason for the urgent need for the representatives of Palestinians citizens of Israel to be an integral part of the government.
For the Palestinian parties in Israel, the task must be to maximize their electoral potential, which is more likely to make them indispensable to centrist and left-wing parties if they want to form the next government. This means they have a real dilemma: to maximize their electoral power, they all need to run on one list. At the last election, three parties ran separately, thereby wasting the many thousands of votes that were cast for them but were not enough to ensure they passed the electoral threshold. On the other hand, running on one list would require them to make ideological compromises while still presenting a platform that convinces potential voters to turn out for them on election day.
Considering what is at stake, a pragmatic approach is the most desirable — one that attracts the most votes without any of them compromising their core beliefs.
For those in the Israeli political spectrum who genuinely believe in the vision of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which defines the state of Israel as “Jewish and democratic,” “democratic” is as vital as “Jewish.” And the Jewishness of the country does not mean the exclusion of the non-Jewish minorities from power or discriminating against them. It is high time to demonstrate this by including at least some of them in the next coalition government.
BY: Writer Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House.
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect The Times Union‘ point of view
