Israel’s opposition should remember: there is no democracy without Arabs
Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett launch their joint list on 26 April 2026
The Haaretz lead editorial on 27 April 2026:
The declaration by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid that they would run together on a joint list included a celebratory invitation to Gadi Eisenkot to join them. “Gadi, our door is open to you, too,” they stated. It’s a pity they made a point of slamming the door in the face of their former partner in the government of change: United Arab List chairman Mansour Abbas.
“The Arab parties are not Zionist and therefore we will not rely on them,” Bennett said.
Disappointingly, Eisenkot toed the same line. He called for a meeting of opposition heads without the Arab parties “in order to guarantee victory through Zionist and good governance votes.”
Eisenkot may have omitted his former partner, Benny Gantz, from his announcement, but the latter also made clear that he sees eye-to-eye with Bennett and Lapid when it comes to the Arab parties. (“A government that neither relies on extremists nor on non-Zionist parties”). How easily Gantz equates Kahanists with his former partner Abbas, and how easily he switches between the words extremist and Arab.
The bottom line is that all the Zionist opposition parties, save for the Democrats, headed by Yair Golan, oppose establishing a government that relies on Arab parties. It is a sign of moral poverty for a camp that waves the flags of democracy and liberalism.
We shouldn’t normalize the idea of a “Zionist” opposition to cover up its ambition to establish a purely Jewish government.
It’s easy to be enraged by the racism and incitement of Benjamin Netanyahu and his natural partners. Kahanist Itamar Ben-Gvir uploaded a post that makes you shudder, writing, “The Bennett-Lapid alliance of brothers is back to selling the country to the Islamic movement.” He attached an AI-generated photograph of Bennett and Lapid under the traditional Jewish wedding canopy, with Ahmad Tibi presiding over them. Arye Dery of Shas denounced “the attempt to bring back the government of destruction of the radical left and the Muslim Brotherhood.” And above all, the national inciter, Netanyahu, released a revolting post of an AI picture depicting Bennett and Lapid as children, with Abbas driving them. He added a caption: “In any case, Bennett and Lapid will ally with the terror-supporting Muslim Brotherhood.”
It is indeed a national disgrace that the prime minister writes such things, defames Abbas and openly incites against Arabs. However, what’s the difference between such vulgar racism and racism that hides behind the call for a so-called Zionist majority? We mustn’t suffice with differences in style. There is no democracy without Arabs, and opposition to Netanyahu’s Kahanist government must promote a new alliance with Arab parties.
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