Seeking one seat-worth of Jewish votes, Arab-majority Joint List launches Hebrew campaign in Tel Aviv

The Arab-majority Joint List party kicks off its Hebrew-language campaign for the October 27 election in Tel Aviv, with chairman Yousef Jabareen saying in response to a question from The Times of Israel that the party expects to attract between 10,000 and 15,000 Jewish voters.

Sami Abou Shahadeh, the head of the Joint List’s nationalist Balad faction who withdrew his candidacy last week, says the Joint List hopes to attract many more than that, and jokes that Jabareen, a law professor, is “being a cautious academic.” Jabareen smiles and says his estimate was correct for “before this evening.”

A source in the Joint List says the party is setting its sights higher, at about one seat’s worth of Jewish votes — just over 36,000 votes, according to the results of the last election.

Party leaders are also asked by a Haaretz reporter whether the Joint List would commit to providing a safety net for a minority government to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which polls indicate is the only option open for Netanyahu’s Zionist opponents. Jabareen, in response, does not say yes.

“We want to be a safety net for the Arab community and for the democratic Jewish community,” Jabareen says. “After the election, we’ll know to decide responsibly and with leadership.”

But even “without a government being formed,” the Joint List would vote in the Knesset in favor of legislation to ban people indicted on “serious criminal offenses” from forming a government, said Jabareen. Such a law, which Zionist opposition parties have expressed support for, would likely apply to Netanyahu, who is on trial for bribery.

Veteran MK Ahmad Tibi, head of the Joint List’s Ta’al faction, would also vote immediately after the election to remove Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, a Netanyahu ally, and to establish a state commission of inquiry into the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, as demanded by opposition parties but rejected by Netanyahu.

The Joint List’s campaign launch is held in a south Tel Aviv art gallery, with dozens of activists and journalists present. A montage of the party’s protests is broadcast onto a wall, as music from Lod-based Arabic political rap band DAM plays in the background.

When the event ends, participants mostly leave through a back door, after right-wing provocateurs Mordechai David and Viktor Shriki set up shop in the front and hurl obscenities.

Speakers at the event tout the Joint List as the only viable option for Jewish voters who oppose Israel’s continued wars and control of the West Bank.

“The Joint List is the address for left-wing, liberal democratic Jews who want a party that opposes war and war crimes,” says Tibi.

In a veiled reference to former IDF chief Yair Golan’s left-leaning Democrats, Tibi adds that the Joint List is the only party “that doesn’t ban an Arab leader from the Joint List and joins up with Ben Gvir.”

The Democrats last month voted in favor of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s motion in the Central Elections Committee to disqualify Abou Shahadeh for purportedly supporting armed struggle against Israel.

The Balad chief dropped out on Thursday after Supreme Court President Isaac Amit told him there was a majority on the bench to ratify the CEC’s disqualification of the Balad chief.

At the campaign launch, Abou Shahadeh likens the scene at the Supreme Court to The Godfather, when mob boss Don Corleone says he’ll make another man “an offer he can’t refuse.”

Abou Shahadeh adds that he “had no expectations” from Golan, but that he was disappointed by members of Meretz, the left-wing faction that joined with Labor to form the Democrats, with whom he had “protested for decades against the occupation.”