Daniel Schloss

I don’t know, guys. If you don’t look at Arab politics and see fundamentally different rhetoric and strategies from 20 years ago, then you aren’t actually looking at Arab politics. You’re just reading Likud talking points about it. There’s a massive anti-Israel and anti-Zionist sentiment in the Arab street. Probably 60% of Arab political representation openly represents that sentiment. And also, there’s a powerful and growing demand to join coalitions, including with the right, to work with state institutions, to integrate into Israeli mainstream society, and so on. Arab political parties that leave aside their ideological uniqueness and unite in a demand for a seat at the table always improve turnout in the Arab street. Always. For eight elections in a row now, that rule has held. Raam has grown dramatically, specifically because it brought a Zionist Jew into its list as its crime czar and promised its voters to tackle real world problems by working *with* Israeli state institutions, instead of against them. It is entirely possible for the Arabs of Israel to both feel deeply Palestinian, deeply wary of Israel’s Jewishness, and deeply desiring of greater integration with their Jewish neighbors. Don’t let anyone make excuses for the many anti-Israel radicals in those lists. But also, it’s simply a lie to pretend that the new and growing desire to integrate isn’t happening. Welcome to real life, where two seemingly opposite things can be taking place at once.