The head of Israel’s Balad party condemned the country’s top political leaders for refusing to form a coalition with Arab parties, even after poll results could make them kingmakers for the next parliament with no clear winner emerging.
Sami Abu Shehadeh told Al Jazeera that Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up around a fifth of the population, are treated as illegitimate partners despite their participation.
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“It’s racism,” he said. “We are a legitimate elected leadership of the national minority. The vast majority of our people have decided that we are their leadership.”
Arab parties are on course to win a record 19 seats, which would give them potentially decisive influence over the main political blocs. With 85 percent of votes counted, Israel’s Central Election Commission leads Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc with at least 53 seats, and the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot with 48.
In both cases they lack the 61 people needed to govern. Netanyahu says Israelis chose a strong right-wing government, while Eisenkot says they voted for change.
Abu Shehadeh, who heads Balad, one of the three Joint List parties, was not a candidate.
Israel’s election commission voted to disqualify him at the request of far-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who accused him of supporting the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack due to an article published the next day in which Abu Shehadeh called it an “important historical event.”
Abu Shehadeh later told the Supreme Court that he did not support “armed struggle”, but admitted that a paragraph in the article had been poorly written. He said his intention was to call for the conflict to evolve into a political process.
He withdrew in October after a majority of the Supreme Court appeared willing to approve the disqualification. He rejects these arguments and says the court made it clear that Israel has “two different judicial systems, one for Jews and one for Arabs.”
“We are very proud of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel who participated in this very high percentage of votes,” he told Al Jazeera. The community’s first promise to voters, he said, was to prevent “this gang of criminals” from returning to power, nominating Netanyahu and far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. “So our first promise, we can keep it from now on.”
Numbers point to Arab parties, but opposition bloc resists
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said Netanyahu “dissuaded everyone from talking to Israeli Palestinian parties”, leaving him best placed to “take the lead”. She said Eisenkot and his allies have indicated they want a Zionist government and “do not want to form a government” with Arab parties, leaving them with few options.
Danny Ayalon, former Israeli ambassador to the United States, told Al Jazeera that the participation of Palestinian citizens of Israel has reached “truly unprecedented numbers” and that the parties are “going to have significant influence.”
Mathematically, he said, Eisenkot’s bloc could join forces with the two Arab parties and cross the threshold, although it would require “political magic.” Yousef Jabareen, who heads the Joint List, said his alliance “has its hands out” to oust Netanyahu.
Abu Shehadeh outlined what Palestinian citizens expect from the next government.
“We are against genocide and against apartheid. We want to promote a different political alternative, based on the values of freedom, justice and equality for the two peoples who live between the river and the sea.”
Of Netanyahu, he said: “Our problem… is that he is a war criminal. »
A U.N. commission said in a report released Monday that Israel continued to commit genocide in Gaza following a U.S.-brokered ceasefire last October in the enclave.
The International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024 for war crimes committed during the Gaza war.
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