Arab party chief says he would ‘seriously consider’ joining Gantz-led government

Ayman Odeh, chairman of the Joint (Arab) List, does not rule out joining a government headed by Blue and White chief Benny Gantz, but says that scenario is unlikely.

“I don’t think that Gantz is ready,” Odeh tells The Times of Israel as he and other leaders of the alliance register in the Knesset for the September elections, when asked whether he would consider joining a government led by Gantz. “He would rather form a national unity government than what we want. But, if he turns to us and he is going in the right direction of peace and equality, we will listen.

“I don’t see it happening because of a lot of bad water under the bridge. We are not in his pocket, he will have to come to us and if we see that there is some common direction, we will seriously consider joining him.”

A spokesperson for the Joint List later claimed Odeh was expressing openness for general cooperation with Blue and White leader.

Asked whether the unity deal between his Jewish-Arab Hadash party and Arab parties Balad, Ra’am and Ta’al is a sign of strength or weakness, Odeh says: “We are coming here stronger than before because we are united. We have learned the mistake of the last four months and we only have to look at the facts — when we ran together, we received 13 seats. When we ran separately, we had the lowest turnout ever. So what do we need to learn? That we need to unite. Now that we have united, the turnout will rise again.”

Asked what his goal is in these elections, Odeh says: “We want to raise the turnout by at least 10 percent, but we need work hard to raise it to at least 65% so that Benjamin Netanyahu and his cronies are sent home. The more we get, the more influence we will have.”

— with Raoul Wootliff