Fate of Arab parties to be decided on Sunday
Balad waivers as Hadash, Ta’al, United Arab List reach agreement to run together in elections
The Balad Party central committee will convene on Sunday to decide whether to join a combined list of Arab parties running together in the September 17 election.
Hadash, Ta’al, and the United Arab List reached an agreement to run together, and announced it at a press conference at the Ramada Hotel in Nazareth on Saturday. Balad leader MK Mtanes Shehadeh said he asked his counterparts to postpone the press conference, “but we [Balad] were refused.”
In the April 9 election, Hadash and Ta’al ran together, receiving six seats. United Arab List and Balad also ran together, receiving four seats. In 2015, the four parties ran together as the Joint List and won 13.
Hadash-Ta’al leader Ayman Odeh, who will head the list, vowed to use the full political weight of the three parties to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Only if we are united can we overthrow the right-wing government,” Odeh said at the press conference. “Only if we are united can we prevent racism, annexation and the destruction of democracy.”
Odeh had considered seeking a merger for Hadash and Ta’al with Meretz instead of reuniting the Joint List. Meretz’s decision last week
to run together with former prime minister Ehud Barak in the Democratic Union Party ended that option.
“The fight against the rightwing, settler, racist, corrupt government requires a strong and large Joint List in the Knesset,” Hadash-Ta’al MK Yousef Jabareen said. “Today we began our journey toward the success of our struggle in the upcoming election.” •