Author: Fatih Şemsettin Işık
Affiliation: TRT World Research Centre
Organization/Publisher: TRT World Research Centre
Date/Place: March 5, 2021/Istanbul, Turkey
Type of Literature: Information Packet
Number of Pages: 13
Keywords: Israel, Arabs, Joint Alliance, Conflict, Elections.
Brief:
In order to create an actual equality between Arabs and Jews, the four Arab parties have made an alliance. On March 3, 2020, they declared they had won a huge achievement in the Parliamentary elections by getting a margin of 15 seats in the Knesset, which is a record for the Arab parties in Israel. Ayman Odeh, the leader of Hadash (The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) stated that the coalition would strengthen the cooperation between Arabs and underprivileged groups of Israeli society. But this statement was not entertained by all the members of the joint group. On February 4, 2021, the joint alliance ended after Ra’am (United Arab List), an Islamist party by Mansour Abbas, decided to secede from the rest and run independent elections. Although the other three still remain in alliance, this departure will certainly create cracks in the representation of Arab citizens of Israel. Ra’am’s secession from the joint alliance also manifests the internal disputes between the parties. With this background information, the author discusses the rise and collapse of the joint alliance in detail, along with its future too. Benjamin Netanyahu has been able to mobilize the Arab-Israeli citizens to vote for him, by playing the security concerns card of Arab-majority cities, where the rates of violence and organized crimes are increasing.
By: Saima Rashid, CIGA Research Associate
