(Bloomberg Opinion) -- On Sept. 22, five days after Israel’s second round of 2019 elections, Ayman Odeh, who heads the consortium of Israeli Arab parties, tweeted in Hebrew a verse from the Book of Psalms (118:22). “The stone that the builders rejected,” he quoted, “has become the chief cornerstone.”
The tweet was clever, for the playfulness it combined with the seriousness of its message. Muslim Israeli Arabs, for whom the Koran and not the Bible is a sacred text, do not often quote biblical verses. But Odeh’s tweet was meant to suggest that something had shifted in the political balance of power. “You have long rejected us in coalition negotiations,” the quote was widely understood to imply, “but now we have become the cornerstone.”
No Israeli party has ever won 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, so every government has been a coalition of parties, each making its own demands for joining. This time, Benny Gantz of the new Blue and White centrist alliance won 33 seats, while Benjamin Netanyahu, the incumbent prime minister from the conservative Likud, had 32. Suddenly, the members of the Joint Arab List, which had won 13 seats (an increase of three from the previous election) saw themselves as potential power brokers. It was clear that to cobble together his own coalition, Netanyahu would need other right-wing parties, which would certainly not sit with the Arabs. But might Gantz?
That would have been a first. For decades, most Jewish Israeli voters have viewed Israel’s Arab parties with suspicion, understanding that they have a complex attitude to the State of Israel. These Arab citizens know that, often, who is a Palestinian refugee and who is an Israeli Arab citizen is a product of luck during the 1947-1949 War of Independence. Those Arabs who succeeded in fleeing the fighting and went to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan or Gaza ended up stateless. Those Arabs who did not or could not escape the combat ended up as citizens of Israel, now a wholly first-world country. They have passports, world-class medical care, excellent universities – all the rights of citizenship. Yet they would quite understandably prefer that Israel become a liberal democracy in which Jewishness would be a private matter, not a state one. They also remain deeply committed to the Palestinians outside of Israel, sometimes feeling more than their share of guilt that they ended up where they are while other parts of their families remain stateless refugees.
Despite these complex feelings, Israel’s Arab parties are increasingly participating in its political processes. Some Arab members of the Knesset (though not all) are willing to acknowledge “the Jewish people’s right to self-determination” - as close as they will get to endorsing the Jewishness of the state. After the September election, their joint list endorsed a Zionist candidate (Gantz) for prime minister for the first time in 27 years, and later met with him as he explored his options in forming a new government.
Two months later, Gantz has not made a coalition deal with the Arab parties and is unlikely to do so. But he has spoken about them with respect, and has assiduously avoided the Arab-baiting for which Netanyahu is well known. With the clock on negotiations running out on Wednesday, and the prospect of a third election - which almost everyone would like to avoid - looming large, Netanyahu has resumed using the issue of the Palestinian conflict to distinguish himself from Gantz. (This despite the fact that Gantz, a former chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, is hardly a left-winger.) Israeli troops went to battle with Islamic Jihad in Gaza last week. Netanyahu got a lifeline tossed to him Monday by U.S. President Donald Trump in the form of an American shift on the legality of West Bank settlements. And the prime minister has also resumed proclaiming that Israeli Arabs want to “destroy the country,” ignoring the subtle but important shifts taking place in the Arab community. Gantz has notably stayed far from such rhetoric, while on Tuesday, President Reuven Rivlin sternly rebuked Netanyahu for his characterization of Israel’s Arabs. His office issued a statement that expressed his “strong objection to recent statements against members of the Knesset and Arab population.”
It is almost certain that Israel’s Arab parties will not be part of the next coalition. We are not there yet. But the progress that has transpired ought to serve as a reminder to both Jews and Arabs of the potential that ought not be squandered. Given that 20 percent of Israel’s population is Arab, and that number is unlikely to diminish, it would serve everyone for Arab citizens to feel more included in Israeli society, to have more money spent on infrastructure in their villages, to have the quality of their schools improved - and to have the discourse of right-wing politicians change.
Yet Israeli Arabs also have some soul-searching to do. They would do well to ask themselves if they are well-served by their elected representatives walking out of the chamber when Israel’s national anthem is sung at the Knesset’s swearing-in ceremony. Can their leadership help them frame a national narrative that enables them to show ongoing loyalty to their families on the other side of the border, while convincing ever more Israeli Jews that they want to be part of a flourishing Jewish and democratic state?
There will be nothing easy about this process, for either side. The slight thaw we have witnessed in recent months, though, is a hopeful indication. One change that any further progress will require is the seating of a prime minister who has a vision for the country that is both Jewish and deeply democratic, a nuanced worldview that Israel’s incumbent has long since stopped expressing. Nobody knows what sort of coalition will emerge in the coming days or weeks, but one thing is clear: Regardless of what the government looks like, there is reason to hope that Israeli Arabs may just be one step closer to becoming a cornerstone of Israel’s democracy.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Daniel Gordis is senior vice president and Koret distinguished fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem. His latest book is “We Stand Divided: The Rift Between American Jews and Israel.”
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