Ideologie vs. Pragmatismus

NN, Donnerstag, 03. Juni 2021, 18:34 (vor 1271 Tagen) @ Serious Black

Opinion | 'King Bibi' Wasn't the Only Big Myth Shattered in Israel This Week
Israel's new coalition has ruptured the fantasies, myths and facile takes that have sheltered American Jews in their hasbarist or anti-Zionist comfort zones for so long

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Mansour Abbas, leader of the United Arab List and, if the government comes into being, the first Israeli Arab party to become a member of an Israeli coalition (not counting the tiny Arab "satellite parties" back in the 1950s and 1960s, who were basically just front-groups for recruiting Arab voters for the ruling Mapai) is an interesting prize for hasbara outfits. And something of an embarrassment for progressive Jewish groups.

Since becoming leader of Hadash and entering the Knesset in 2015, Ayman Odeh became the firm darling of progressive Jews. Since 2015 was also the election in which the Joint List, a coalition of mostly Arab parties, was launched, and Hadash got top spot on the candidate slate, it was also an opportunity to present Odeh at their conferences as a representative of all "Palestinian Israelis."

The fact that only a quarter of the Joint List could credibly be called "progressive" (besides Communist Hadash, the other three parties are Islamist, Arab nationalist and just ordinary bourgeoisie, not to mention the fact that the list had more than its fair share of homophobes, bigamists and pro-Assad Syrian genocide deniers) was easily ignored.

Odeh was to be the spokesperson for a new generation which would demand true equality for Israel’s non-Jewish citizens. But that was a very facile way of regarding not just a list made up of four very different parties, but a far from homogenous Israeli Arab community.

Odeh was supposed to be the man who would lead the way in to a brave new coalition, proudly upholding his "'48" Palestinian identity. But instead of the urbane secular lawyer from Haifa, the man leading the first Arab party into government is a ultra-conservative, Islamist dentist and lay-preacher from the small Galilee town of Maghar. A man who hasn’t been lauded on any progressive stage in the U.S.

Abbas, who split his United Arab List off from the Joint List before the last election in March 2021, and surprised many by winning four Knesset seats going it alone, isn’t desperate to ruffle any Jewish right-wing feathers. He was/is even prepared to sit in a Netanyahu coalition if his demands were met.

And those demands have nothing to do with Palestinian identity or social justice, and everything to do with securing funding for infrastructure in Arab towns and villages and preventing the demolition of tens of thousands of structures built without a permit. In his big speech after the election, in Hebrew, he didn’t mention the P-word once. And as part of his agreement with the new coalition, he secured the promise that the government wouldn’t push through new legislation on LGBTQ rights.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-king-bibi-wasn-t-the-only-big-myth-shatter...