About a week ago, the final results of the Sept. 17 elections began to pour in and the Arab Joint List achievement became known. The Joint List higher-ups were photographed as they held hands and then lifted them up as a sign of victory, to the cheers of their supporters. Joint List Chairman Ayman Odeh and Knesset member Ahmad Tibi (head of the Ta’al faction) claimed that this was a historic achievement not only by virtue of the 13 Knesset seats they received from the public but also due to the fact they had gained enough power to block Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from establishing a right-wing, ultra-Orthodox majority coalition of 61 seats.

When the celebrations died down, the Joint List members began to prepare for the Day After, with the goal of leveraging their power to promote their political agenda. They had prepared a list of demands in advance, and Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper printed it at length under the headline, “Tibi’s outline for an obstructive bloc.” The Joint List’s tactic was to condition a future recommendation of Benny Gantz to be the state’s president, on a Blue and White agreement to fulfill at least part of the demands.

After the elections, Odeh and Tibi talked to Gantz and Blue and White Co-chair Yair Lapid on the phone in order to coordinate their positions toward a possible cooperation between the sides. Nevertheless, both lists understood that they might be harmed politically if they publicly open a communications channel, or even publicize their cooperation. Netanyahu, for instance, would under no circumstances squander the opportunity to attack Blue and White for cooperating with the “Arabs.” And indeed, after the Joint List recommended Gantz for the premiership, Netanyahu did attack: “This happened exactly as we warned.”

Recommending Gantz to President Reuven Rivlin for the task of forming the next government was not an easy step for the Joint List. At first its members were in no hurry, but the growing pressure from the list’s activists and constituents sent them to convene on Saturday, Sept. 21, in Kafr Qassem. There they made the decision to waive the “calculated tactics” of avoiding to recommend anyone in the first round of consultations. Instead, they would realize the will of their constituents, and recommend Gantz in their meeting with the president. Any other decision would have sparked much anger with most of the Arab public.