Despite the naysayers, our Jewish-Arab party won’t burn votes; it’ll only help

Activists announce the establishment of A Place for Us All, a new Jewish-Arab party, in Nazareth on 30 June 2026

Rula Daood writes in Haaretz on 1 July 2026:

I can understand Uri Misgav’s fears.  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be defeated in the upcoming election, and under no circumstances will we endanger the possibility of replacing this government. We will not waste any votes from Netanyahu opponents. On this there is no disagreement between us, as we in the new Jewish-Arab party, A Place for Us All, have repeatedly promised, including in Haaretz (though Misgav refuses to understand).

There is only one thing we disagree about – whether the way to defeat the right is to persist with the same politics that have failed again and again, or whether we should dare to build an alternative.

Misgav urged his readers “not to believe a word” of what we say, citing a January post by the Standing Together organization that said the movement isn’t a party and won’t become a party. But he omitted the rest of that post, which said, “Obviously, it’s legitimate if activists choose to get involved on the political playing field … and we welcome every activist who also chooses to be part of the decision-making centers.”

Misgav also ignored that even today, Standing Together is not a party. It remains a grass-roots movement and continues to wage battles in the non-parliamentary arena.

Granted, many of the founders of A Place for Us All were activists in Standing Together. I am proud of the years when I was co-leader, alongside Alon-Lee Green, of that organization. I’m proud of the battles we waged and of our partnership. And in my view, founding A Place for Us All was a natural continuation of that work. It’s an opportunity to bring our values and leadership from the grassroots into the Knesset.

Nevertheless, not all of us came from Standing Together. Other activists, both Arab and Jewish, who were looking for a new political home, have also joined A Place for Us All.

Misgav, with his characteristic sensitivity, attributes the decision to form a new Arab-Jewish party (which elsewhere he has termed “Alon-Lee Green and friends,” erasing myself and the other Arab women in the party’s leadership) to motives of “egotism,” “narcissism,” “arrogance” and “unreliability.” But he’s wrong. The decision to found A Place for Us All didn’t stem from personal ambitions on any of our parts.

I never planned to be a member of Knesset; that was never my dream. When I did make that decision, I knew that if I entered this arena with the goal of serving my people and my community, I would need to pay a personal price (including the derogatory terms media figures would use to label me in newspaper opinion sections).

The decision to found A Place for Us All stemmed from the realization that after Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023 and the subsequent war of annihilation in the Gaza Strip, the raging violence in our streets and the suffocating cost of living, street protests alone weren’t enough. If we are seriously committed to changing reality, then we also have to fight from within the Knesset. We have to be in the place where policy is shaped, budgets are allocated and laws are enacted.

For years, we have heard both Arabs and Jews express disappointment and despair over the fact that they had no one to vote for, that no party represented them. Founding A Place for Us All was an attempt to provide a solution for such people.

The in-depth polling we have conducted consistently shows that we don’t merely slice the pie differently; we make it bigger. We bring tens of thousands of people to the polls who are currently unrepresented, and therefore, don’t vote – primarily women and young people from the Arab community.

Misgav dismisses our goal of bringing in new voters. Not only does he fail to explain why, but he also speaks with characteristic blindness about the situation in the Arab community. Just this week, a poll by Channel 13 showed that only 51 percent of eligible Arab voters plan to vote, and among women and young people, the number is even lower.

Consequently, nothing could be more effective in toppling Netanyahu than getting these people to vote. If Misgav is truly committed to replacing the government, he ought to be encouraging A Place for Us All so that the unique voters we can bring to the polls don’t stay home.

And one final point, perhaps the most fundamental one. We reject the view that Jews and Arabs are supposed to operate in separate political frameworks – Jewish parties (with a symbolic Arab representative) and Arab parties (with a symbolic Jewish representative). This isn’t just because it is morally wrong, but also because it fails politically. Separatist politics creates seclusion, hostility and fear.

That is why we are running. Because we understand that the only way to beat the far right is to beat the idea on which it is built – that Jews need to be on one side and Arabs on the other.

After three years of hell, it isn’t enough to demand a return to October 6, 2023. We need to dare, to dream big, to put an exciting alternative on the field and pull in new voters. Only in this way will we succeed in increasing Arab representation, expanding the bloc that wants change and building a Jewish-Arab majority that will be able to send this government of death into the dustbin of history.

Rula Daood is a co-chair, alongside Alon-Lee Green, of A Place for Us All.

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