Joint List rebukes Gantz for calling only 3 of 4 of its sub-faction leaders

Blue and White chief Benny Gantz called the heads of three of the four factions that make up the Joint List on Monday and told them that he was committed to forming a government that will serve both Jewish and Arab Israelis and prevent a new round elections in the coming months, a short statement distributed by the centrist party said.

The calls came less than a week before representatives of parties are slated to meet President Reuven Rivlin, and possibly recommend a Knesset member to him to form a government.

If the Joint List, an alliance of the four largest Arab-majority parties, decides to recommend Gantz, it would likely improve his chances that Rivlin will choose him to try to cobble together a coalition first.

The Joint List won a record 15 seats in last Monday’s Knesset elections, becoming the third largest party in the parliament.

Ayman Odeh, the chairman of the Joint List, criticized Gantz for not calling all the heads of the parties that make up Joint List.

“Benny Gantz called me, Mansour Abbas and Ahmad Tibi, but not Mtanes Shihadeh. That behavior is unacceptable for us,” Odeh said in a Facebook post. “I called Benny Gantz [back] now and clearly told him that this approach is totally unacceptable and that he will not find a partner in us for it.”

Mansour Abbas is the head of the Islamist Ra’am and Ahmad Tibi is chairman of the exclusively Arab Ta’al, while Mtanes Shihadeh is the top MK representing the nationalist and secular Balad.

Odeh added that “we are acting as a unified [group] more than ever this week, and we do not accept any person, first and foremost of among them, Benny Gantz, dividing us.”

Balad has often come under fire by Zionist parties for its rejection of the notion that Israel is a Jewish state and its support for turning Israel into a country with equal national and civil rights for Arabs and Jews.

Heba Yazbak, Balad’s second-highest ranking MK, has faced criticism for a Facebook post that she made in 2015 in praise of Samir Kuntar, a terrorist who in 1979 took part in the brutal murder of members of an Israeli family in Nahariya.

Tibi said in a statement that the Joint List was “united” and could not “be split,” but noted that Blue and White had asked to meet with the Joint List, including all of its factions, “to discuss the issue of the recommendation to the president and other issues on the agenda.”

Later on Monday, Tibi tweeted that Blue and White asked for the meeting to take place on Tuesday.

Shihadeh said he “did not expect a call from Gantz and he was not surprised that he did not phone.”

“I represent a party that has a large voter base and it is part of the Joint List and will remain that way,” he said. “We are only taking action in accordance with our voter base’s interest, first and foremost of which is to topple Netanyahu and the racist policies he leads.”

Following the national elections in September, Balad was the sole party in the Joint List that did not recommend Gantz to serve as prime minister.

Abbas, meanwhile, said that the Blue and White chairman’s “outreach” to the Joint List constitutes “a declaration of positive intentions.”

“The most important thing is the meaning of what he said and it is a candid invitation to cooperate in the coming period to serve everyone — Arabs and Jews,” he said. “We want to translate our electoral accomplishment of 15 representatives in the Knesset to realize our rights, obtain achievements and deal with issues threatening our present and future.”

Abbas and other members of the Joint List have said they want to work on solutions to a number of issues facing Arab communities such as rampant crime and a shortage of zoning plans and building permits.