Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been waging a campaign against the formation of a minority government headed by the Blue and White party with support of the Arab Joint List from outside the coalition, calling such a government “an existential threat to the State of Israel” on Nov. 17. And as one could expect, this campaign had an effect on the field.  On Nov. 30, Joint List Knesset member Ahmad Tibi arrived at a cultural event in Ramat Hasharon, and discovered that right-wing activists were “waiting for him” at the entrance. They tried to prevent his entry, yelled “murderer, terrorist, glorifier of martyrs” at him, and even tried to physically hurt him.

The attack on an Arab Knesset member has not changed anything in the Israeli political agenda and has not led to a wave of condemnations by Israeli politicians, except for perhaps a remark by Blue and White leader Benny Gantz at the beginning of the party meeting Dec. 2, denouncing the violent discourse and acts against groups in the Israeli society.

Here the question is asked: If it had been an attack on a Jewish member of Knesset in an Arab town would it have passed without wall-to-wall condemnation by the political establishment? “If a Jewish public persona entered an Arab town and someone gave him a light hit with a stick or thrown sand at him, it would have turned into a national story,” Tibi told Al-Monitor, adding that at the Knesset plenum Dec. 2, “Gantz rose from his seat and shook my hand and expressed solidarity following the attack.” All the same, it seemed that Gantz feared expressing explicit solidarity and directly condemning Tibi’s attack in public. This reluctance of being associated with Arab Knesset members is apparently also the reason that Blue and White gave up on collecting 61 signatures for the president, to propose a majority coalition. They feared adding fuel to the Likud’s anti-Arab campaign by signing on Knesset members from the Joint List.

One can’t write off an attack on a Knesset member at a public event. Whoever can reach a member of Knesset with a stick in order to harm him could do so with a firearm, especially as Knesset members travel without security. Tibi explained this at the same event when he said, “If a government would form with external support from the Joint List, I expect that one of us would be assassinated.”