Arab lawmaker says joining coalition would legitimize Israeli occupation
The leading elected Palestinian leader in Israel tells Al-Monitor that while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vicious racism led Arab voters to the polls, the Arab coalition still cannot join a ruling coalition.
Ahmad Tibi, the head of the Arab Movement for Change, a leading Arab party in Israel, told Al-Monitor that despite supporting Benny Gantz to set up the next coalition government, the Joint List will not be part of the next government in Israel because that would legitimize the occupation.
“The Joint list can’t be part of a governing coalition because that would make us responsible for the decisions taken by the government,” he said.
However, Tibi provided a long list of demands that the predominantly Arab list will make if asked to support a possible Gantz minority government from the outside. The list includes requests for major economic development support to Arab communities in Israel to the tune of 64 billion shekels ($18 billion), the end of house demolitions in Israel, tackling crime in Arab communities, cancellation of the racist nationality law and heading the important finance and interior committees in the Knesset as well as serious negotiations with the Palestinian leadership on the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The final count of the Sept. 17 elections show that the Joint List received the third highest number of mandates with 13 out of 120 Knesset seats. Tibi noted that the incitement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his party activists backfired, saying, “The incitement against Arabs and the attempts to delegitimize Arabs had an opposite effect.”
