Every day that goes by with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisting that a unity government with the rival Blue and White party must include his “natural allies,” — i.e., the right-wing Yamina (Rightward) and ultra-Orthodox Shas and Yahadut HaTorah parties — brings the country closer to a third election within the span of less than one year. Netanyahu has at least two good reasons to trample Israel’s democracy and increase the budget shortfall by tens of millions of shekels. First of all, another election will buy him a few more months in the prime minister’s office as leader of a caretaker government, during which he could try several evasive tactics to avoid his expected criminal indictments on charges of corruption. Second, and not necessarily in that order, the next elections will provide him with an opportunity to hone his incitement skills against the community largely responsible for his failure to obtain a 61-seat Knesset majority in the Sept. 17 elections — the Arab minority. Alternatively, Netanyahu may be able to find a scapegoat elsewhere.

According to the final tally of the Central Elections Committee for the 22nd Knesset, voter turnout in Arab and Druze towns and villages rose 10% from the April 2019 elections to 59.2% on Sept. 17 (compared with a 1.4% increase in the general turnout). As a result, Arab citizens increased their Knesset representation from 10 to 13 seats in the 120-member legislature, making the Arab Joint List the third-largest parliamentary faction, after Blue and White and the Likud. Three of the four parties constituting this alliance, which account for 10 of its 13 lawmakers, have recommended to President Reuven Rivlin that he task Blue and White leader Benny Gantz with forming Israel’s next government.

However, there is a fly in this ointment: If Gantz, the former army chief, embraces Joint List Chair Ayman Odeh and his friends, he will lose the support of Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party that currently holds the balance of power and thereby forfeit his chance of forming the next government. On the other hand, if Gantz decides to team up with Liberman, he will undermine not only Blue and White’s prospects of becoming the country’s ruling party. Recently, Liberman said, "In the Knesset there is a party that is trying to destroy us from within, and in the best-case scenario, they belong in parliament in Ramallah, not in Israel." Partnership with Liberman who treated the parties representing almost 21% of Israeli citizens as “enemies” whose place, at best, is in the Palestinian parliament (one wonders what would be a worst-case scenario in his view) would turn Gantz into a persona non grata in the Arab towns of Taibeh and Umm al-Fahm. Not only that, turning his back on the proffered hand of the Arab representatives would be a slap in the face of the Arab voters who turned out in droves at the polling stations on Sept. 17, hoping that this time, they would not be left out of Israel’s political game.

“For the door to be opened wide, for Israel to be your home, for every person living here to feel at home,” renowned author David Grossman wrote prior to the elections in an op-ed published Sept. 12 in the mass circulation Yedioth Ahronoth and the Nazareth-based Kul al-Arab weekly, urging Israeli Arabs to flock to the ballot boxes. As aforementioned, the Arabs indeed flocked, but so far no door has been opened wide to welcome them. Everyone, including President Reuven Rivlin known for his messages of conciliation and equality, speaks highly of a “unity government,” a whitewashed term for a Jewish, Zionist government devoid of any hint of Arab participation.