Top Arab Israeli leader says opposition must join forces to oust Netanyahu

• Yousef Jabareen said opposition parties must work with the Joint List and Raam to reach a 61-seat majority and oust Benjamin Netanyahu after an inconclusive election.
• He said Arab parties’ 19 seats could block Netanyahu’s return, and urged rivals to accept the “political reality” in the Knesset.
• Jabareen said there is “room for dialogue” on crime, housing and budgets, but partners must reject Netanyahu’s wars, Gaza destruction and West Bank settler violence.

NAZARETH, Israel – The leader of the largest Arab-majority party in the incoming Israeli Parliament said on Nov 2 that it was time for reluctant opposition members to accept “political reality” and join forces to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yousef Jabareen, head of the Joint List, pointed to the inconclusive results of last week’s election, in which the pro-Netanyahu bloc won 53 seats and the opposition camp won 48 – both well short of a 61-seat majority.

But the Joint List and its fellow Arab-led party Ra’am bagged 11 and eight seats respectively, enough to push the opposition over the finish line should it choose to accept their support.

The Arab parties’ performance “is what is stopping Netanyahu from celebrating the continuation of his government”, he said, calling it “a far-right government with all the dangers it represents”.

He criticised holdouts in the opposition camp who have publicly voiced opposition to a coalition that includes Arab parties, including Avigdor Lieberman’s secular-right Yisrael Beiteinu.

“Like everyone else in the political arena, Lieberman must deal with the political reality and the numbers in the Knesset (or Parliament),” Jabareen said.

“Given the current parliamentary arithmetic, Netanyahu’s government... cannot be replaced without coordination with the Joint List,” he said in an interview in Nazareth, an Arab stronghold and the boyhood home of Jesus Christ.

Arab Israelis, who make up around 20% of the population, are descendants of Palestinians who stayed after Israel’s creation in 1948.

Distance from main parties

Israeli President Isaac Herzog will begin meeting this week with representatives of parties that won seats in the Oct 27 vote, to determine the leader to give the first shot at forming a government.

Opposition camp leader Gadi Eisenkot has expressed misgivings about a coalition government including Arab parties, but has not ruled it out publicly.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, spent the campaign painting the parties as a threat to the country.

Jabareen said he met Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas on Nov 2, and would meet the following day with The Democrats’ Yair Golan, the veteran left-winger who is the only member of the opposition bloc to publicly call for a governing partnership with the Arab-led parties.

“The political landscape is now clear: The opposition parties do not have a majority to pass legislation without the Joint List. We are therefore saying that we are willing to extend our hand in support in legislation and decisions that serve our political project and programme.”

‘Room for dialogue’

The Joint List diverges strongly from most Jewish-majority opposition parties in key areas, including in its support for a Palestinian state.

Jabareen played down such issues, saying his party was focused on the interests of Arab Israelis.

“The need to ensure their safety in the face of crime and violence, house demolitions, discriminatory policies and budget allocations are issues on which there is room for dialogue,” he said.

But he added that potential partners would at least have to look positively on the party’s positions repudiating Netanyahu, including his “path of wars, destruction in Gaza and settler terrorism in the West Bank”.

Eisenkot shares much of Netanyahu’s security outlook, and his opposition to a Palestinian state. But he has promised to repair the damage done to Israel’s international standing by the devastating Gaza war, and to crack down on West Bank settler violence.

Jabareen said: “Our positions are based on human rights and are supported by international law and international conventions. These positions can be described as extremist only if the person making that accusation is himself an extremist.” AFP