Hadash MK Ayman Odeh, leader of the Joint List alliance, told Haaretz on Tuesday, March 16, that MK Mansour Abbas, whose Islamist United Arab List broke away from the alliance ahead of next week’s election, apparently “doesn’t understand that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu used him.” On the feasibility of a broader joint Jewish-Arab democratic alliance, Odeh insisted that the Joint List must be at its core.
MK Ayman Odeh during an electoral campaign meeting, last Monday, March 15, in a southern neighborhood of Tel Aviv (Photo: Zo Haderech)
Speaking at a Haaretz conference on Jewish-Arab partnership in Israeli politics, Odeh also said that center-left parties should construct a new path that is not based only on the slogan of “Anyone but Netanyahu.”
In a conversation with correspondent Noa Landau, the Joint List leader added he believes this path lies through building a society based on equality and social justice, meaning that Jewish Israelis have to realize that neither Arabs nor Jews can do this on their own, independent of one another. Odeh said that the Joint List’s formal endorsement of Benny Gantz for prime minister after last year’s general election for the 23rd Knesset was a rare and “historically courageous move,” driven by his list’s own understanding of this reality.
