The participation of Hadash-Ta’al party leader Ayman Odeh in the opposition parties’ May 25 anti-government rally in Tel Aviv got off on the wrong foot, but it ended with hope. Knesset member Ofer Shelah of Blue and White, the rally organizer, invited Odeh to address the event. Odeh answered in the affirmative several days later, only to be told the list of speakers was already closed.

It turned out that between the time the invitation was first issued, about two weeks before the event, and the time of Odeh’s response, Blue and White members affiliated with the right wing (such as former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and two former aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Zvi Hauser and Yoaz Hendel) mounted a mini-revolt. They argued that Odeh’s participation, as head of an Arab party, would be detrimental and thwart future prospects of garnering right-wing voter support for Blue and White.

In the ensuing uproar, the political left argued that, paradoxically, while the opposition was mobilizing to defend Israel’s democracy, it was pushing away Arab citizens, who constitute a 21% minority.

In the campaign leading up to the April 9 general elections, leaders of Blue and White, which was established prior to the elections to take down Netanyahu, avoided all contact with the Arab parties. The leadership believed that if the party portrayed itself as “neither left nor right,” it would increase the odds of garnering support from moderate voters on the political right and achieve victory. In that regard, they saw Odeh as a red flag.