Hadash-Ta’al chairman, MK Ayman Odeh have accused Benny Gantz’s Zionist Blue and White party of anti-Arab racism, hypocrisy and desperate maneuvering following a series of video ads the party released Tuesday, January 13, that stated that a government coalition should not include an Arab party. The campaign has garnered intense criticism for targeting MK Mansour Abbas’s Islamist party Ra’am and equating it with racist Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with minister Benny Gantz at a special plenum session presenting the new far-right emergency war government at the plenum of the Knesset, October 12, 2023 (Photo: Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

In one video ad, a family is seen watching in horror with the wail of rocket sirens in the background as the cancellation of a security cabinet meeting is announced due to the refusal of government ministers from Ra’am to participate in wartime,  “The security of our children comes before everything; we do not rely on Arab parties,” the ad says. Accompanying the ad, the party wrote in a post on X: “Fateful decisions regarding the security of the State of Israel cannot be made by a narrow government that relies on Arab votes. The State of Israel needs a broad, Zionist consensus government, without Ben Gvir and without Ra’am.”

Odeh said in response to Gantz on X that “without the Arab citizens, it’s impossible to build a real alternative to Ben Gvir, [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich, and Netanyahu’s government.” “We do not derive our legitimacy from Gantz, Lapid, or any politician who takes part in our exclusion,” he continued, adding that “we are citizens by right, not by favor.” “The Arab citizens of the state, make up 20 percent of the population. And despite the incitement and rampant racism, despite the abandonment and the hatred, we will turn out to vote in large numbers,” Odeh said.

During last months, Gantz’s support in opinion polls has collapsed. According to every major poll since October 2025, Gantz does not garner the 3.25% of the vote needed to get his party across the electoral threshold and into the Knesset. The man who, according to a Maariv poll on November 24, 2023, was polling at 43 seats has not registered in that paper’s weekly surveys since September 19, 2025, and even then, only barely clearing the electoral threshold with four seats.

Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=24654