Joint List chairman, MK Ayman Odeh (Hadash) has made US President Donald Trump’s imperialist “Deal of the Century” the main target of his campaign in the general elections for the Knesset to be held tomorrow, Monday, March 2. “We have an opportunity to defeat the Trump plan in these elections,” said MK Odeh, head of the third largest bloc in Israel’s current parliament.

MK Ayman Odeh making an electoral appearance in Tel Aviv; the Joint List placard he’s holding aloft says in Hebrew, “I’m a partner (Ani shutaf),” a play on words derived from the Hebrew name of the electoral bloc he heads up (HaRishima HaMishutefet). (Photo: Zu Haderech)

Odeh, sees the Joint List’s winning more Knesset seats than ever (it currently has 13), as a key factor in ousting far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power. Netanyahu’s main challenger, centrist Blue & White leader MK Benny Gantz has adopted a strategy of focusing voter attention on the prime minister’s upcoming corruption trial. However for Odeh, “The core problem with this plan is the prime minister’s talking about how he will get rid of part of his citizens,” as one key plank in the plan is the redrawing of Israel’s border to shift many Arab towns in the Triangle region, home to more than 300,000 Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, so that they are appended to the occupied West Bank. The Trump plan, which less than being endorsed by Netanyahu was actually conceived by him, “deals with the Arabs as unwanted citizens of a country they [the political Right in Israel] want exclusively for Jews”.

During this election campaign, Israel’s third in less than a year, Odeh has portrayed the Trump plan as the “most dangerous issue” since 1967, when Israel seized east Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Sinai, the Syrian Golan Heights and the West Bank in the Six-Day War.

“We want the fall of Netanyahu because he is the greatest inciter against Arab citizens and the godfather of the ‘Deal of the Century,'” Odeh said, adding that the main objective of the Joint List remains stopping Netanyahu and his “extreme right and pro-settlement allies” from reaching the 61-seat majority required to form a government. Odeh has also said the Joint List will not back Gantz after Monday’s vote, because the latter has also publicly supported the Trump plan.

Related:

• MK Touma-Sliman: “While Trump Has Power and Money, on Their Side the Palestinians Have Justice”
• Odeh: “PM Hates Arabs More than He Loves Cigars and Champagne”
• Global Coalition of Jews Decries Trump’s Imperialist “Peace Plan”
• Joint List Leader: “We Won’t Back Gantz for PM after the Election”
• Hadash MK Calls for Voters to Beat Netanyahu by Voting for Joint List