At a preliminary reading Nov. 10, the Knesset approved a bill for building a hospital in the Arab city of Sakhnin in the north of Israel. The proposed law was introduced by Chairman of the (opposition) Arab Joint List Ayman Odeh and would need to be approved at two more Knesset readings in order for it to become law. The chances of that happening seem slim, at least for the moment. Still, the preliminary vote in favor was certainly a moment of victory for the Joint List and the opposition.

The Sakhnin bill was not officially backed by the coalition. So how did the bill pass? As it turned out, Knesset member Mazen Ghanaim of the Arab Ra’am coalition party, who had served in the past as the mayor of Sakhnin, voted this time with the opposition. As a result, the proposed law passed with a majority of 51 votes to 50 opposed.  Emphasizing the importance of this issue for him, Ghanaim said after the vote, “If I am faced again with the same sort of test and I feel that my conscience obliges me to vote against the coalition, then I will resign from the Knesset.”

The results were read in Arabic by Joint List Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, who managed the plenum at the time. In the background, members of the opposition of all stripes, from the Likud, religious Zionism and the Joint List, celebrated the achievement. Truth be told, it was a rare sight of Likud members celebrating a law introduced by Odeh, whom they have blamed in the past for allegedly supporting terror.

Taking into account the diverse composition of the coalition, with partners not necessarily sharing the same agendas (apart from the original desire to topple former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), the passage of the proposed law at a preliminary reading should not be discounted. In fact, some in the coalition recognize that there might very well be more losses in votes over bills because the coalition is not homogeneous.