Surge of Palestinian votes in Israel just the beginning
The message “We kicked you out Netanyahu” went viral on Palestinian social media after last week’s Israeli elections. The Arab vote was the main factor causing Benjamin Netanyahu’s defeat to Benny Gantz. The surge of the Arab voice will also have an impact in the long run. Palestinian voters have come a long way. What is interesting is that this time, when they went to vote, they went as Palestinians, not as voters for the left or the right. Previously, their votes were scattered and so was their voice and their representation. However, now they have proved to Israeli society and the political community that their voice can make or break a candidate. Netanyahu’s racism played in their favor. He was good for them because his racism awakened their latent activism. No longer does the average Palestinian living in Israel want to bow his head and just get by.
Palestinians learned from the April elections. Then, the Palestinian candidates were spread over two lists due to internal divisions. Palestinian voters did not feel the seriousness of the people who were supposed to represent them; hence the turnout at the ballot box was weak. However, penalizing the Palestinian candidates paid off. This galvanized the candidates to coalesce and overcome their personal differences.
In last week’s elections, the Arab Joint List was able to get 432,741 votes, or 10.72 percent of the total votes cast. As many as 81.3 percent of Palestinians who voted backed the Joint List. “Now we are a key player in Israeli politics. We have 13 members of the parliament, this is our chance to make a difference,” Mansour Nasasra, a Palestinian academic based in Jerusalem, told me. The Joint List used the slogans “More common, more effect,” and “Our unity is our power.” Palestinian candidates, who used to hide in the shadow of Zionist lists, now have a list of their own. They did not even join Meretz, the left’s list, but decided to have a list of their own under the leadership of Ayman Odeh.
The Joint List’s leaders this week met with President Reuven Rivlin and announced their support for Gantz as prime minister. Nevertheless, the Joint List will not join the government coalition. If it joins the government with the current laws, it will be giving legitimacy to the racist laws that discriminate against them as a minority in Israel. Though they will not join the government, their success will give an impetus to Palestinian activism inside Israel. The Arab community will expect more from the Joint List.
In a piece published by the New York Times, Odeh wrote: “We will decide who will be the next prime minister of Israel.” He added that change would have been impossible without the Palestinians and that the center-left should accept they have a place in Israeli politics. This is the first time since 1992 that the Palestinians have endorsed a prime minister and taken an active role in Israeli politics.
The Joint List will now be expected to put pressure on the government to freeze the nation-state law that basically legalizes racism against Palestinians, marginalizes them and deprives them of their civic rights. According to this law, Israel is a Jewish state that only allows Jews to enjoy the full rights of citizenship.
It also marginalizes the status of the Arabic language. The community will also expect the opposition to pressure the government to reverse the Kaminitz Law that legalizes the demolition of Arab houses and prohibits Arab villages from expanding. Since 1948, the growing Palestinian population has been confined by law to an ever-decreasing space. So far, Gantz has not been clear on these two laws, but it is unlikely he will respond to the Palestinian aspirations and alienate a large part of Israeli society. However, the surge of Palestinian votes is the beginning, not the end. It is the beginning of a change inside Israel. Following this success, the Palestinian component will be able to drive change in the Israeli political discourse. In the absence of international pressure, which could force Israel to embrace the two-state solution, the hope instead lies in a change in Israeli public opinion, which could force a policy change. Today, members of the Joint List are the champions of this hope — the hope that Israel will evolve toward becoming a more equitable society; a society that will accept a two-state solution. After all, who would have thought that the Palestinians could kick out Netanyahu?