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What Israel's left could learn from the Arab Joint List

The leadership of the left-wing democratic-Zionist camp should follow the example of the Arab Joint List's approach to the September elections if they want their parties to stand a chance in the March 2020 balloting.
05 September 2019, Israel, Tel Aviv: Amir Peretz, leader of the Israeli Labor party, speaks at the Channel 12 News Conference in Tel Aviv. Photo: Ilia Yefimovich/dpa (Photo by Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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In a back-page op-ed in Haaretz on Dec. 18, Knesset member Ilan Gilon of left-wing Meretz presented his party’s three goals: an equitable distribution of wealth, the division of land between Israelis and Palestinians, and the separation of religion and state. Former Knesset member Mossi Raz, the Meretz leadership’s far-left standard-bearer, had the day before listed the party’s central goals on Facebook, in this order: ending the occupation, avoiding an escalation with Gaza, revoking the Nationality Law (which discriminates against Arab citizens), creating a social-democratic society, and halting the expulsion of asylum seekers’ children. The latest opinion polls indicate that at best, Gilon and his colleagues will cross the electoral threshold, obtaining the requisite 3.25% of votes, to send four representatives to the 23rd Knesset in March.

In the September 2019 elections, running under the banner of the new Democratic Camp with Ehud Barak's latest party, Meretz’s key agenda items — peace, equal rights and social justice — barely got them 4.3% of the eligible votes cast. At that time, Israeli voters went to the polls with one goal in mind — to determine the fate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and that will be the case even more so on March 2, 2020. In other words, voters have been and remain less concerned about ideologies than voting to keep Netanyahu in power or to get rid of him.

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