Opinion | No Good Government Can Exist in Israel Without Jewish-Arab Cooperation

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, right, Palestinian Yasser Arafat, center, and Israeli Shimon Peres in 1995.Credit: Yaacov Saar/GPO

This week, Israelis mark the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Once again, they'll mention Benjamin Netanyahu and the balcony in Jerusalem's Zion Square (where an infamous anti-Rabin rally was held), maybe someone will note that the Oslo Accords were the last time the word "peace" was uttered by an Israeli leader – not an American one.

Maybe the pundits will write that there's now an opportunity for a regional agreement and say that Rabin must be proud there, in his grave. The probability that they'll discuss an equally important political issue that was advanced by Rabin – Jewish-Arab political cooperation in Israel – is very slight.

Now, when we're in an election year, we should discuss such cooperation. It's important to discuss it especially because so many groups, and not only on the right, are trying to prevent it. Only recently there was a meeting of all the opposition leaders, led by Naftali Bennett – who isn't an MK and whose political power is based only on opinion polls at this point – that did not include the Arab MKs.

So it's not only Prime Minister Netanyahu who openly excludes Arabs – more elegant and polite "centrist" groups do so as well.

We now have an excellent opportunity to talk about Rabin, who wasn't afraid to change his mind. The general who called to "break the arms and legs" of Palestinian militants during the first intifada, proved that he was a genuine leader, with a vision and a plan of action, when he said at an election conference in Nazareth in 1992: "We've been in power for 29 years and we're to blame for the discrimination. I beg forgiveness, and I plan to take steps to eliminate discrimination."

In the 1992 election the Labor Party received 44 Knesset seats, Meretz 12, the far-left Hadash 3 and Mada (the Arab Democratic Party) 2. Shas, which had 6 seats, joined the government and resigned from it in September 1993, after the signing of the Oslo Accords. After Shas' departure the government became a minority government (56 MKs out of 120), which was supported from the outside by Hadash, an Arab-Jewish party, and Mada.

The support of the two parties was enshrined in an agreement whose main points were: The Rabin government will strive for peace with the Palestinians and will promote equality for Arab citizens, and Hadash will prevent the right from toppling the government. Hadash and Mada complied with the understandings and supported the government in all the no-confidence proposals that could have caused it to fall.

Rabin also complied with the agreement. He promoted negotiations with the Palestinians and his government recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization, signed the Oslo Accords, left Gaza and Jericho in May 1994 and took initial but important steps to amend discrimination against Arab citizens, such as canceling discrimination in child allowances and providing additional budgets for the Arab local authorities.

In effect, that was the last time that the State of Israel actively progressed towards a genuine and profound change in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has threatened its existence as a democracy for the past 80 years. The only way to do that was through Jewish-Arab civic cooperation.

Today, as though we haven't learned a thing, too many of the opponents of the present government reject cooperation with the Arab parties in the worst case, or accept as a fact the claim that such cooperation is impossible. They do so against their own interests and in a manner that strengthens their rivals.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the opening of the winter session of the Knesset, Jerusalem, October.Credit: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

Despite this tendency, everyone knows that very soon we'll see opposition leaders trying to pick up votes in Arab communities and telling Arab citizens that they have to go out and vote in spite of everything, otherwise there will be a bad government here, for them and for us.

We have to say to these leaders: There won't be a good government here without some kind of Jewish-Arab cooperation.

I insist on the expression "good government" because there's a chance, even if it looks slim at the moment, that we'll be able to defeat the far-right bloc and that there will be a coalition headed by Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman and their partners, or a similar line-up. At this point such a victory doesn't looks realistic, nor is it what Israeli society needs.

In order to offer Israel a better future, which enables a change in direction on the domestic and international level, we have to join hands, symbolically and practically, with Arab society.

That's above all the correct moral and conscientious thing to do, and it's also the only step that will lead to an increase in the voting percentage among one-fifth of Israel's citizens, who are definitely not a part of the far right.

Michal Sela is the executive director of Givat Haviva, the Center for Shared Society.