On Friday, Gadi Eisenkot accused caretaker prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of fuelling a “racist” campaign against Israel’s Arab minority, after Netanyahu tried to delegitimise the community’s lawmakers by linking them to Hamas. “Racist” is Eisenkot’s word, not a court finding.

On X, Eisenkot wrote that Arab citizens “are an integral part of the Israeli story” and that they have faced “a racist and aggressive campaign of delegitimisation, fuelled by the outgoing prime minister and those around him for political purposes”. He added that trying to marginalise them and vilify them collectively is “a profound violation of the principles of civic responsibility”. That account is The Guardian’s, via AFP.

Al Jazeera renders the same post as a “racist and violent” campaign and quotes a figure of 21 percent of the population. In that version, Eisenkot says the prime minister of Israel is the prime minister of all citizens, including those who did not vote for him, and that smearing them as a group is an anti-state act. The Guardian says Arab citizens make up more than 20 percent of the population.

In the 27 October election, Eisenkot’s alliance won 48 seats and Netanyahu’s right-wing and religious bloc 53, both short of 61, according to Al Jazeera. The two Arab-majority parties, Ra’am and the Joint List, hold 19 seats between them, nearly a sixth of the 120-seat Knesset, the Guardian reports.

Netanyahu and his allies have repeatedly criticised Arab party leaders for refusing to call Hamas a “terror group” after the 7 October 2023 attack. The Guardian notes that all of those leaders condemned the attack, and that Arab citizens — descendants of Palestinians who remained in what became Israel in 1948 — were among those killed. Repeated claims of electoral fraud by Arab-majority parties have been rejected by the electoral authorities.

In a speech, Netanyahu lamented that the two lists refuse to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, although Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas has done so in the past, and he claimed they sought either an “Islamic state” or a “nationalist Palestinian state”. At the same ceremony, national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir heckled Joint List leader Yousef Jabareen during the oath and accused him of having “pledged allegiance to Hamas”.

Eisenkot said it is legitimate to disagree with Arab party representatives, even to disapprove of some of them strongly, but not to malign an entire community. President Isaac Herzog tasked him on Sunday with forming a government, after consultations in which a majority of parties, including the two Arab lists, recommended him. Right-wing ally Avigdor Lieberman has said he will leave the coalition if Arab citizens are part of it. Al Jazeera reports that Eisenkot has ruled out a government with the Arab parties, a formula that would give him 67 seats, and that the backing of the ultra-Orthodox parties United Torah Judaism and Shas would give him exactly 61. He has 28 days, may ask for 14 more, and if he still fails the mandate passes to another lawmaker, most likely Netanyahu.

The photograph shows the Knesset building in Jerusalem, not Friday’s sitting and not Eisenkot. Image: Gary Todd, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

Source: Eisenkot accuses Netanyahu of ‘racist’ campaign against Israel’s Arab minority, The Guardian.