Gantz needs the tacit support of Arab parties to give him the numbers in the Knesset to foil no confidence motions, even if these parties are not coalition partners. In 1992, Labor party leader Yitzhak Rabin presented a clear alternative to Likud prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, vowing to cut funding to what he disdainfully termed “political settlements” in the West Bank that had no strategic value and drained taxpayers money. It amounts to pandering to the dominant right-wing sentiment of Israeli public opinion, rather than leading a proactive effort to guide the public to a more moderate alternative. Gantz's approach to the Palestinians is also consistent with that of centrist rival Lapid. Benny Gantz, the leader of the main Israeli opposition party Blue and White (Kahol Lavan), yesterday slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “weak” in the face of Gaza resistance, Al-Resalah reported. The demands addressed some of the most essential concerns of Palestinian communities inside Israel, including calling for a freeze on house demolitions, better municipal services, and a serious effort to tackle violence within their communities. With the liberal democratic aspects of the Israeli system under threat and the country defining itself more and more as a Jewish ethnic state as specified in last summer’s Nation State law, courage and resolve are needed to stop the rot. The head of the Joint List alliance, Ayman Odeh, gestures to supporters during an electoral campaign rally in the northern Arab-Israeli town of Sakhnin on Sept. 15, two days before the Israeli general election. Benny Gantz, the country’s alternate prime minister, has expressed serious reservations. The turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel in April hit a record low—just scraping 50 percent.
But end of campaign polls show he is not convincing enough of the public. Since the very beginning of the State of Israel, its Palestinian citizens have been viewed as a fifth column, and they have been purposely segregated, excluded, and placed under surveillance.This is why the Joint List’s demands, while meeting some of the immediate needs of Israel’s Palestinian citizens, are a short-term fix for a much larger structural problem. He flatly rules out their gaining the capital they seek in occupied East Jerusalem. Indeed, no Palestinian Arab party has ever been part of a governing coalition in the Israeli Knesset. Palestinian citizens of Israel, like many Jewish Israeli citizens, had reached the end of their tolerance for his 10-year reign.While other Israeli citizens focused on his corruption charges, Palestinian citizens of Israel showed they’d had enough of his overtly racist rhetoric in addition to provocative government maneuvers, such as the Nation-State Law, which sought to affirm that Israel is an ethnocracy with lesser rights for its non-Jewish citizens. The Palestinian political representatives inside Israel need to come up with a new strategy that not only addresses the needs of the local communities but also does not betray the West Bank and Gaza.