Palestinian savior will not come from the Joint List

Haneen Zoabi, a member of Israel’s Knesset, has a message for Palestinians: “Salvation will not come from any Israeli election.”

It’s a point of view Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reinforced Wednesday when he announced the formation of the most right-wing coalition government in Israel’s history.

A Palestinian herself, Zoabi, 45, is trying to tone down high expectations the Arab community — in both Israel and the Palestinian territories — have for the Joint List, the bloc of ideologically diverse predominantly Arab parties that hauled a record 13 seats in Israel’s recent parliamentary elections.

At the same time, she wants to take advantage of excitement surrounding the Joint List’s success to inspire Palestinian citizens of Israel to rally against discrimination and demand equality under the law.

But if Palestinians are overly optimistic about the impact of the Joint List in Israel's legislature, it isn’t entirely their fault. Prior to the March 17 poll, Joint List candidates positioned themselves as harbingers of change to Arab voters who’ve long complained that they're treated as second-class citizens in Israeli society.

Bloc leader Ayman Odeh, for example, spoke at length of bridging the divide between Jews and Arabs, and even billed himself as Israel's equivalent of Martin Luther King, Jr.

“In the end of 1998, I was elected to the Haifa city council,” he said. “I was like Malcolm X … I was Malcolm X all the time. It took me three to four years until I made the shift from Malcolm X to Martin Luther King. I loved the anger. But my head, and my party, wanted a different discourse, an approach that brought Arabs and Jews closer.”

Such speeches broke through community apathy and inspired Palestinian citizens to head to the polls in “droves,” as Netanyahu put it on election day.

The Joint List’s promising rhetoric even inspired leaders on both sides of the Palestinian territories’ political divide to endorse the bloc.

In the West Bank, Fatah official Hatem Abdul Qader described the election as a “crucial battle” necessary to increase Palestinian influence over Israel. And in Gaza, Hamas’ military wing, led by Mohammed Deif and Marwan Issa, characterized the Israeli election as another front in the struggle for “liberation.”

Whether or not the endorsements helped remains unclear, but voter turnout among Arab voters did increase by almost 10 percent over the previous election, propelling the Joint List to become the third-largest party in the Knesset and sparking celebrations across the greater Palestinian community.

But now that celebrations have subsided and Israel has formed a new government, members of the Joint List are attempting to temper expectations — pointing out that winning 13 of 120 Knesset seats is good, but hardly enough to push a Palestinian agenda.

At best, the MKs can expect to collaborate with center-left Jewish opposition parties to decide a split vote or seek positions on key committees that have influence over domestic issues that matter to Arab citizens, such as education and housing. But they will almost certainly have no influence over Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands or stalled peace talks.

“They are a minority party inside the Knesset, which is dominated by Jewish Zionist parties and frequently racist parties,” said Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the PLO’s Central Council and resident of the West Bank.

That’s precisely why some Palestinian citizens of Israel boycotted the elections altogether, said Hind Silman, a Palestinian political activist from Laqia.

“Our presence in the Zionist Knesset is the whitening of the face of the occupation,” said Silman. “It is propaganda that gives the Zionist entity legitimacy in the world as a democratic state that treats the Palestinians and Jews equal, but this is not true.”