The results were not even known and Israel’s supporters abroad were already praising the strength of the country’s democracy, highlighting the strong participation of its Arab minority.
“Israel’s Arab citizens, men and women, are turning out to vote in historic numbers. They can vote, run for office, and serve in the Knesset – rights denied to many Arabs and women across much of the Middle East,” tweeted Democratic U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer.
“Our essential ally in the fight against terrorism, Israel, is the only democracy in the region, and it shows it today,” he added.
Gottheimer is one of the most staunchly pro-Israel lawmakers in Congress and an increasingly isolated voice among Democrats, who also include Rep. Tom Suozzi.
“Today, 5.5 million Jewish, Christian and especially Arab Israelis participated in the Middle East’s only democracy,” Suozzi tweeted, employing an argument commonly used against those who accuse Israel of apartheid.
“The elections in Israel today are yet another reminder of the shared values of our two nations. Am Yisrael Chai,” he added.
Another foreigner – albeit temporarily in Israel – attempted to offer the country similar accolades for the voting rights it grants to its Arab citizens.
“Today is election day in Israel… Arabs vote like Israelis. A controversial process, but it’s a democracy – there aren’t many in this region!” » wrote the American ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee.
Outside the equation
The US envoy tellingly suggested that Arabs are not Israeli citizens, and then admitted his poor choice of words.
But his initial detachment of Arabs from the rest of the country is one that is made and routinely accepted by the Jewish public in Israel when discussing the minority community’s political representation.
That’s why headlines described Tuesday’s election results as inconclusive, even though a majority of voters supported parties determined to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, thanks to an unprecedented 19 seats won by the two Arab-majority parties.
The anti-Netanyahu bloc is steadily designed to exclude the Joint List (12 seats) and Raam (7 seats), leaving it with a minority of 48 seats, after around 90 percent of the votes were counted on Wednesday.
This wording owes in part to the bloc’s leaders’ own remarks: Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot, B’Yachad president Naftali Bennett, and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman all ruled out a coalition with Arab-led parties.
Added criteria
The more Palestinian nationalist Joint List has shown little appetite for such a political partnership, but has expressed an eagerness to work with other anti-Netanyahu parties to at least replace the longtime prime minister who relentlessly demonized Arab voters during the last campaign and appointed far-right ministers who have proposed measures against their communities and fellow Palestinians across the Green Line.
But the Ra’am party, the most pragmatic, is desperate to join an anti-Netanyahu coalition, and its leader, Mansour Abbas, took a series of steps to kosher his faction in the eyes of the Jewish public, notably by bringing former police commander Yoav Segalovitz on Raam’s Knesset list.
Abbas has also for years recognized Israel as a Jewish state, meeting a key criterion established by Eisenkot for political partnership.
But ahead of Tuesday’s elections, Eisenkot added a new condition: recognizing Hamas as a terrorist group that Israel must destroy.
Abbas condemned the October 7, 2023 attack, called for the release of the hostages and supports a two-state framework rejected by Hamas. But he stopped short of calling for the destruction of Hamas, because Israel’s war against the terrorist group has also come at the expense of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The Raam president did not rule out fulfilling Eisenkot’s final condition, saying it was an issue that needed to be discussed in coalition negotiations. But even if the parties reached a consensus, it would be insufficient for the other two parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc.
Both Bennett and Liberman ruled out a coalition with non-Jewish parties, saying there was no mandate for such a partnership after October 7, even though Arab citizens were murdered and taken captive in Gaza alongside Jews. This is despite the fact that both party leaders privately praised Abbas as a loyal partner in their previous 2021-2022 government, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Only Democratic leader Yair Golan has expressed a contrary opinion, but other Jewish party leaders are following Netanyahu’s lead.
Netanyahu sets the standard
The Prime Minister did not seek to deprive Arabs of their right to vote, but he sought to deprive this vote of meaning and legitimacy, presenting the participation of the entire community in the elections as a threat to national security.
He released a frenzied video on Tuesday, highlighting high turnout in Arab cities and accusing the minority community of “trying to steal the elections from us.”
Netanyahu issued a similar warning on election day in 2015 and later apologized after being roundly accused of racism.
In this campaign, however, the rhetoric was a feature, not a bug, as he warned that his rivals would form a coalition with Arab parties, who he said would therefore be unable to confront threats to Israel’s security.
One right-wing political commentator called the record Arab turnout “political October 7.”
“It is simply forbidden to endanger Israel and form a government that relies on anti-Zionist Arab parties,” Netanyahu said early Wednesday morning after exit polls indicated that one of the only scenarios threatening his continuation in power was the formation of a minority government supported by Arab parties.
Raam’s participation in the previous government did not prevent an Israeli counterterrorism campaign in the West Bank that made 2022 the deadliest year for Palestinians in the territory in nearly two decades.
Netanyahu has disparaged “anti-Zionist Arab parties” even as his own bloc includes Orthodox lawmakers representing anti-Zionist communities and extremist settlers, some of whom similarly reject the sovereignty of the Jewish state.
The prime minister himself even courted Raam after the previous elections, but failed to form a coalition, so the Arab party joined forces with Bennett.
Netanyahu’s rivals have the opportunity to forge a similar partnership again, but few analysts expect Eisenkot, Bennett and Liberman to all violate their campaign promises by forming a coalition with the help of Raam and the Joint List.
As a result, these Arab votes may have counted more abroad than at home.
Gn world
