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eridani

(51,907 posts)
Wed Mar 18, 2015, 09:12 PM Mar 2015

Juan Cole: Palestinian-Israelis' Selma Moment


http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/29140-palestinian-israelis-selma-moment

In an unprecedented move, Odah said he would study any proposal from Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog that showed a commitment to peace. This was before it became clear that Netanyahu’s Likud had won. It is a little unlikely that the Joint Arab List would have been invited to help form a government, and the JAL’s Balad Party coalition partner objected to any such thing. The small rightwing parties Herzog needs to get to 61 seats of 120 are racist and would likely not have agreed to sit in a cabinet with Palestinian-Israelis.

Palestinian-Israelis as Israeli citizens technically have the vote if they live in neighborhoods and villages recognized by the Israeli state. In the past, they have had as many as 12 seats in parliament but since they were divided into small parties and lacked unity, it did not really matter. There was also more consensus among Jewish Israelis in the past. Given the present polarization of left and right and the united front of the Palestinian-Israelis and their Israeli Communist allies, their good performance this time could, as Odah says, make them a swing vote on some issues and give them genuine influence.

You could compare this moment to the post 1964 period in American politics when African-Americans mobilized, having gotten fuller voting rights, and you ended up with a Congressional Black Caucus that simply had no counterpart in the 1950s. In some ways, today is the Selma moment of the Palestinian-Israelis.
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