Why The Position Of The Israeli Arab Population Is Both Crucial And Misguided
By
Leonard Zwelling
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/22/opinion/palestinians-citizens-israel-election-voting.html
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-elections-mizrahi-jews-820f3182?mod=Searchresults&pos=1&page=1
Rula Hardal is one of the 20% of the Israeli population who is an Arab. Many Americans are unaware of how large this voting bloc is and how much influence on the government it could leverage if it followed Hardal’s advice and got organized and voted as a unit. Hardal’s positions are described in the above op-ed from The New York Times on October 22.
Let me start by saying that I ascribe to almost none of the assertions in this piece about Israeli “ethnic cleansing” in the wake of October 7. I do agree with the statements about Arab citizens of Israel being second-class. I have seen this with my own eyes. BUT, and this is a huge but, Israel is not going to cease being a Jewish state to please the Arab minority.
That being said, the Arab population of Israel proper (the author calls this population “Palestinian.” I call it Arab as I am not prepared at this point to acknowledge that there is such a thing as a Palestinian) could more effectively represent itself in the current Israeli political system as well as better secure the safety of Arabs inside Israel.
That cannot mean, as Hardal writes, the undermining of Israel being a Jewish state. That is non-negotiable. However, the Arab citizens of Israel should have every right that the Jewish citizens of Israel have. At the same time, Israel must remain a Jewish state. Both of these things can be true and must be true.
Hardal points out that the two leading parties vying for power in the elections on October 27 have said that they will not include any elected Arab members of the Knesset, and there could be as many as 10-12 seats controlled by these two Arab parties (Ra’am and the Arab List). The reluctance of Netanyahu and Eisenkrot to partner with the Arab bloc is unfortunate because without the Arab seats, neither Netanyahu’s Likud nor Eisenkrot’s Yashar! are likely to be able to pull together the needed 61 seats. Another important factor is discussed in my second attachment from The Wall Street Journal on October 24 where the fact that the majority of Jewish Israelis are no longer from families that came from Europe (Askenazi), but rather from families that were expelled from Arab lands around 1948 (Mizrahi). Netanyahu is from the European immigration; Eisenkrot is from the Mizrahi immigration. Exactly how these various voting blocs will break on Tuesday is unclear.
I am going to predict that Eisenkrot will reverse his declaration not to include the Arabs in his coalition if he gets the chance to form a government. That way, he will not have antagonized his anti-Arab supporters during the voting, but will get first crack at forming a government.
I believe that most of the western world does not appreciate the collective Israeli trauma that is embedded in the national psyche after October 7. This is magnified because no one has been held accountable for the security failures of that day. If Eisenkrot can triumph and form a government that does not include unruly settler parties promoting violence and the ultra-Orthodox Haredim whose young men will not serve in the military, a committee can be formed (supposedly by the Supreme Court) to determine what the lapses of October 7 were and who is to blame. This is what petrifies Netanyahu even more than going to jail for relatively smaller crimes like taking luxury items and making deals for good press coverage.
And, while Israel tries to come to grips with October 7 and find an equal place for its Arab citizens and maintain the Jewish identity of the state and figure out whether or not bombing Iran is such a good idea, the Knesset also might consider having a constitutional convention so Israel can have a written description of its government as promised 78 years ago.
This is a government with one house of the legislature where the chief legislator is also the chief executive. Some of the current members of the government want to marginalize the Supreme Court, the only check on executive power in such a system. All of this needs a careful review.
So, while people like Hardal want to see Israel not be a Jewish state until there is an Arab state beside it, this is not likely to happen until the Arabs get responsible leadership and Iranian surrogates leave the area. If the Arabs want their own state carved out of land conquered by Israel in a war in 1967, they are going to have to throw off the influence of Iran and find some leaders worthy of their goals.
Until then, what Israel has done after October 7 is not genocide. If Arabs want to call it ethnic cleansing, they may, but then put forward some ideas about how to change things. So far, I have heard nothing but whining, gun fire, and refusal to make a deal as far back as 30 years ago.
In the end, the Arabs are going to have to earn the state they so desperately crave and on which Arab leadership has so often refused to compromise. Until then, they should indeed vote in the coming elections and let’s hope someone is smart enough (it has happened once before) to include them in a new coalition government.
