'Give peace a chance': Israeli protesters urge opposition to ally with Arab parties

On Saturday, thousands of Israelis marched in the streets, pleading with the opposition to join forces with Arab parties in order to remove Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu has been aggressively targeting Arab leaders, leading to significant gains for Arab-majority parties in Tuesday's election. However, opposition chief Gadi Eisenkot has not yet decided whether to form a coalition with Arab parties.

Addressing a rally in Tel Aviv, Ayelet Raz, a 60-year-old psychologist, emphasized the importance of giving peace a chance and warned that continued bloodshed was inevitable. Tuesday's election was inconclusive, with neither side securing a majority in Israel's 120-seat parliament. The Jewish-majority parties opposing Netanyahu won 48 seats, while the two Arab-majority parties, Raam and the Joint List, together secured 19 seats.

An alliance between these two groups could potentially provide the anti-Netanyahu bloc with a substantial majority of 67 seats. However, some members of the opposition bloc oppose this idea. Arab parties have only ever been part of an Israeli government once, when Mansour Abbas, leader of Raam, joined a short-lived coalition from 2021 to 2022.

Abbas has expressed willingness to do so again. Eisenkot, who shares Netanyahu's views on security issues, reiterated his stance that only a Zionist government committed to recognizing Israel as a Jewish, democratic, and liberal state, as well as recognizing Hamas as a terrorist organization, would be acceptable. While Eisenkot has stated he does not want a government dependent on Arab lists, he has not explicitly rejected their external support.

Demonstrator Sharon Balaban, a 55-year-old video artist from Jerusalem, called on the opposition to be brave and take the right course of action.