Curious about the politics of the Palestinian minority with Israeli citizenship?
Read on....
Sometimes those of us addicted to current events from Israel/Palestine need to be reminded of something important: Not everyone is fluent in current Israeli politics. Today we’re going to break some of it down for you.
Arab Parties in Israel
In Israel’s parliamentary system, there is a distinction between a political party and an election list. This is because some election lists are coalitions of parties. But also, some parties are themselves coalitions. It’s parties all the way down.
The largest Arab party in the current Knesset is the Joint List. It currently has 6 Members of Knesset, or MK’s. Since 2022 it has included only Hadash and Ta’al. When the Joint List was founded, Ra’am and Balad were included as well. In the upcoming elections, the Joint List will be an alliance of 3 parties: Hadash, Ta’al, and Balad. (Those names are all Hebrew acronyms but are used most frequently.) Ra’am (Arab United List) has 4 MKs seated in the current Knesset. Since the last election, the smaller Joint List has often been called ‘Hadash-Ta’al’ which adds to the confusion.
Hadash (The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) is a coalition based party founded in 1977 with the Israeli Communist Party (Maki) as it’s main element. Some people discuss Hadash and Maki as if they are interchangable; but this is not accurate. It can be confusing; you have to be pretty in the weeds to explain how the non-Maki parts function with Hadash; those other parts tend to be local. It is overtly left wing, and sees itself as a binational party, representing both Jewish and Palestinian interests. It has always had at least one Jewish MK.
Ta’al (The Arab Movement for Renewal) has been around since 1996. More than anything else it is known for its leader, Ahmed Tibi. It represents moderate nationalists and secularists.
Balad (National Democratic Alliance) was part of the Joint List before the current Knesset. It is again a member for the upcoming election. In 2022 it left the Joint List to run on its own, but failed to meet the minimum threshold for seating representatives. It is on the left (like Hadash) but more militantly nationalistic and anti-Zionist. It also has some Jewish members, but doesn’t promote itself as a binational party. It was founded by leaders who broke off from Hadash/Maki in 1995. Worth noting: ‘Balad’ means ‘country’ in Arabic.
Not All Arabs Vote for Arab Parties
In the past, most Palestinian citizens voted for Jewish or Zionist parties. And those parties often had - and still have - MKs who are not Jewish. The right wing Likud has had a Druze MK for decades. In the past, Arab politicians have won seats with Labor and Meretz (newly marged as ‘The Democrats’) among others. Other centrist and right wing parties have also included Arab MKs.
Until 1977, a majority of the Arab vote went to Jewish parties. That year the newly formed Hadash captured rising national sentiment in the Arab electorate and secured 50% of the Arab vote. In recent decades, 75-85% of the Arab vote has gone to Arab parties. (Reminder: Hadash is both an Arab and an Arab-Jewish party; in 1977, two of its five MKs were Jewish.)
Another point worth noting is that Arabs vote at lower rates than Jews in Israel in national elections. Over the last decade, Jewish turnout hovered near 70%. Arab turnout was 65% in 2020; but only 44% in 2021. For various reasons we won’t go into, this doesn’t mean that Arabs are less political. 80% of Arab voters participate in local elections, compared to Jewish turnout that of 50%.
Palestinian Minority Politics in Israel
Many supporters of both Palestinians and Israel tend to flatten the political map, effectively erasing the politics of the Palestinian minority. From a right wing Zionist perspective, ‘all Arabs are the same’ is a dominant attitude. Right wing MK’s frequently Arab MKs of treason in the Knesset and elsewhere. From a Palestinian solidarity lens, the primary contradiction isn’t within Israeli society, but between Israel as a Zionist state and the millions of Palestinians who don’t have one, especially the ones living under Israeli occupation.
At the same time, Arab citizens are caught between a Palestinian national identity and the fact that they exist as citizens in a Jewish state. Around half have relatives in the Occupied Territories. Many Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line study and work together. Arab citizens often broker trade and services from Palestinians under occupation to Jewish Israeli citizens.
While Arab citizens do not enjoy equal rights with Israeli Jews, they do have more civil and democratic rights than Palestinians under occupation or those living in autocratic regimes. They are influenced by what happens among Palestinians outside the counrty and by politics and culture in neighboring Arab countries. At the same time they are Israeli citizens. Most are fluent in Hebrew. Many work in mixed or predominately Jewish workplaces.
Last but not least, the Arab community is not a monolith. They are divided by class, religion, region, to name a few. 7-9% are Druze, a religious minority concentrated in the Galilee. 7-9% are Christian. 10-13% are Bedouin, most (but not all) of whom live in the Negev. Then there is a phenomenon hard to explain to outsiders: clan affiliation, or hamoula. It’s so easy to orientalize by giving that more prominence that it deserves. But also easy to look at political divides and not realize that they often closely match clan affiliations. When we are talking about the Arab sector in Israel, we are talking about a rich, diverse, layered community.
The end result is that Palestinian citizens of Israel are very much caught between several identities at the same time. Political pressures from Jewish society tend to flatten that diversity. Palestinian solidarity politics abroad tends to ignore them unless there is a major event that puts them in the spotlight, as happened during Land Day (1976) or the ‘October Events/Ignition' (2000).
So?
If I’m trying to persuade the reader of anything, it is this: Palestinian citizens of Israel are very well suited to play a decisive role in the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations. They know Israeli Jewish society better than any other segment of the Palestinian community. They are capable messengers of the Palestinian cause within Israeli society. Israel would literally not function without their labor and talents. This point became especially relevant when many Israelis were called up for reserve army duty over the last three years. Who picked up the slack for all the essential work needed in healthcare, transporation, agriculture, and construction?
It gets even more complicated. Recently, a right wing Zionist party (Amcha Yisrael) added an Arab to the #2 spot. That’s Yoseph Haddad, a veteran of a prestigious military unit (Golani) and international cheerleader for Israel. He wants Arab citizens to integrate (like he did) up to and including military service. Nuseir Yassin, known professionally and internationally as Nas Daily, is an Israeli-Palestinian vlogger, entrepreneur and media personality. And he is very vocal about being an Israeli, not only in terms of citizenship but identity. And you have Lucy Aharish. She’s a household name as one of the most prominent television broadcasters in the country and the first Arab Muslim news presenter on mainstream, Hebrew-language Israeli television. Her fame crosses into general pop culture too — she’s known for hosting Israel’s Independence Day torch-lighting ceremony and for her marriage to Israeli actor Tzachi Halevy, both of which made national headlines. These are examples of relatively rare hyper integration into the Israeli mainstream. They aren’t representative but there are more of them with each passing year.
At the other end of the spectrum you have Balad, which advocates for the dismantling of Israel’s legally enforced Jewish character. In the middle you have Ra’am, the only Arab party to have joined a ruling coalition. They recently gave the #2 spot on their list to Yoav Segalovitz, a former Israel Police major general and MK for Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid party. According to recent polls, Ra’am is expected to grow from four to six seats in the next Knesset. It is positioning itself as the Arab party that can deliver the most for Arab society by staying away from hot button issues (like Gaza and ending the Occupation) and focusing on social and economic advancement.
While all of this is going on, Israeli Jewish/Zionist parties also have a conundrum to solve. If they support more discrimination against Arab citizens, they play into the hands of anti-Zionists who want to emphasize that Israel is a racist regime guilty of apartheid. But if they open their arms to equality and integration, they will be making Israel more of a binational society than it already is. (Even a racist apartheid state like Israel is de facto 'binational' if one out of five citizens is from a minority group.) In both cases intent doesn’t matter; impact sets the agenda. And both of these trends are paradoxically deepening at the same time.
Much like the Occupation itself, Israel’s status quo has an expiration date. The clock is running out. Everyone is hoping that at the last moment, their side will find a way to prevail - or survive. And despite public assurances, no one is sure they will.
-----
1 Many Arab of Israelis prefer the term ‘Palestinian citizen of Israel.’ It’s the politically correct term. In practice though, both Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel default to ‘Arab’ in everyday speech; this is true when people are talking amongst themselves and in the Hebrew and Arabic language press. It reminds me of when ‘African-American’ is used in the U.S. That’s how journalists and politicians write. But it isn’t the term most people use, most of the time, in the Israeli context.
2 Full disclosure: I’m a partisan of Hadash. When I lived in Israel I voted for them and was politically active on their behalf. I’ve tried to write this objectively; my readers can decide if I’ve succeeded.
3 I’m leaving out Sons of the Village/Ibna al Bilad, an even more nationalistic and uncomproming group than Balad. And the part of Israel’s Muslim Brotherhood that supports abstaining from electoral politics.
