Richard Witty made a very important point to me the other day. He said that he wished that Tzipi Livni had been able to forge a coalition with the more-western-oriented of the Arab parties in the Knesset. But she refused. She wanted her coalition to be Kadima-Labour-Shas: 60 of the 120 members of Knesset. From AFP:
"In theory, Livni can form a minority government with less than 60
seats from the 120 in the Knesset but she would need the support of
Arab MPs, something that part of Kadima opposes," Gideon Doron,
political science analyst at Tel Aviv University, told AFP.
"The
Shas party remains the key to the formation of a government, but this
party is itself split between the wish to retain power and sympathies
of its base for Benjamin Netanyahu," he said, referring to the leader
of the right-wing Likud party….
And on Friday Shas said it had failed to secure two key requirements [promises from Livni]
— increased family allowances and a guarantee that the future of
occupied east Jerusalem would not be negotiated in peace talks with the
Palestinians.
Under such conditions, it said, "we cannot take part in a Livni government."
Wait– if Israel is really a democracy, then how come the Arab votes aren't "key." Why is only rightwing Shas "key"? Arabs just don't count when it's crunchtime, that's why.
I made the same point a few months back when talking about Ehud Barak's pre-Camp David coalition in 1999. Barak could have made a government with 10 Arab Knesset members. "[B]ut the new prime minister was loath to induct them [Arabs] into his coalition and make it dependent on Arab consent," Benny Morris relates in Righteous Victims. Maybe that coalition would have been good for the world!
This isn't trivial. This goes to the heart of a definition of democracy and to Israel's future. If every vote counts, then it counts, and sometimes it gets to be the swing vote. But the Arabs can't be said to have real parliamentary power in Israel, because of the refusal by Jewish parties to allow them to be a swing vote. The Israeli center-left is granting more power to colonialist, one-Jerusalem Netanyahu. Why isn't this a scandal? Why don't American Jews, so included in our country, not to mention American politicians, urge the Israelis to make a government of all their citizens? This isn't racism? This isn't as bad as the Shi'a and Sunni in Iraq?Am I missing something?
Because maybe if Kadima included the Arab parties in the coalition, that would actually lead the way to a two-state solution. Who really wants it?
P.S. Steve F often tells me that polls show that Palestinian Arabs far prefer life under Israeli rule than in a neighboring Arab state. Anybody know about this?
