Last week, Israelis witnessed a harsh exchange between lawmakers Aḥmed Tibi (Joint List) and Betzalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism) as part of the ongoing drama in Israel’s national religious camp over the potential inclusion of Mansour Abbas’s United Arab List faction in a nationalist government led by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud).
MK Smotrich has repeatedly made clear his firm refusal to join any coalition supported by Abbas, who Smotrich sees as being linked to Hamas.
Despite this, Rav Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Tzfat and a leading spiritual figure in Israel’s national camp, said in an interview with army radio that if the UAL is genuinely distancing itself from movements that fight against the State of Israel, it would be permissible to sit with them in a government.
Rav Eliyahu’s words were especially striking following Abbas’s April 1 speech that called for “coexistence based on mutual respect” and had many pundits speaking about his party’s major shift from one that pushes an anti-Israel agenda to one that seeks cooperation with the State of Israel in order to gain material improvements for the lives of its Palestinian citizens.
Similarly stunning, Rav Ḥaim Kanievsky, a leading rabbi in the ḥaredi world, stated that it is actually preferable to form a government with the UAL than with the Liberal Zionist parties in light of the values shared by the ḥaredi community and the UAL’s traditional Muslim base.
Being as the three fastest growing populations between the river and the sea are the ḥaredi, national-religious and more traditional Palestinian communities, Rav Kanievsky’s words could be understood as a hint of what Israeli society might look like in twenty years.
Rav Eliyahu went so far last week as to pen a letter to UAL leader Mansour Abbas, expressing hope that the two sides could cooperate together. When Aḥmed Tibi, whose Joint List faction Abbas had broken away from, learned of this letter, he expressed disdain for the chief rabbi and referred to him as “human garbage.”
MK Smotrich jumped to Rav Eliyahu’s defense and asserted that Arabs who don’t recognize Jewish ownership over Eretz Yisrael won’t remain in the country for much longer.
Tibi then responded, expressing his joy that Smotrich will need to rely on Palestinian parliamentarians to obtain a ministerial role (since the UAL might be necessary for the pro-Netanyahu camp to reach the required 61 seats to form a government), and called Smotrich a racist in German – an interesting choice being that this was the eve of Yom HaShoah.
While this might all seem like a lot of banal political banter, a closer examination reveals that the feud between Tibi and Smotrich betrays a much deeper reality.
First, it is clear that Tibi, the leading voice of westernized Palestinian nationalism in the Knesset, feels deeply threatened by the potential alliance that could potentially develop between the country’s more traditional Jewish and Palestinian factions.
Such an alliance would fundamentally undermine the last twenty years of Tibi’s political career, and his countless zero-sum attempts to advance the Palestiniann cause through an erasure of the state’s more uniquely Jewish features.
If Abbas and his fellow UAL lawmakers can improve the material conditions and advance the rights of Israel’s Palestinian citizens while maintaining their traditional Muslim values, the Joint List may never recover from the losses they took in the recent split with the UAL.
Tibi therefore needs to convince himself that even if a nationalist government is formed together with the UAL, it won’t signal new possibilities for Jewish-Palestinian relations and cooperation but would simply be an isolated occurrence in which the national camp uses Abbas and his party for their own needs.
But Tibi is smart enough to know that his analysis could be wrong and, if so, Abbas’s inclusion in a nationalist coalition could revolutionize Israel’s political map and show the state’s Palestinian citizens that they have more to gain from supporting the UAL than from supporting the Joint List.
But all of this will remain irrelevant if Smotrich maintains his contrarian stance of complete refusal to sit with the UAL. It is likely that the inclusion of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s kahanist Otzma Yehudit faction (at Netanyahu’s urging) has hardened Smotrich’s stance on the matter and without the UAL, Tibi’s assertion that the national camp won’t be able to form a government may prove correct.
Even if Gideon S’ar (New Hope) can be persuaded to join a Netanyahu government and the UAL’s inclusion in the coalition becomes unnecessary, the national camp would have missed a crucial opportunity to improve the relationship between those Jews fully living Israel’s national story and the Palestinians.
What makes Smotrich’s position so disappointing is that he and his party represent exactly the sector of Israeli society that should be engaging the Palestinians. For decades, Liberal Zionists have dominated the nation’s relationship with our neighbors, which has not only led to misplaced hopes of attaining Palestinian liberation through a two-state paradigm but also a misunderstanding of Jewish identity and connection to this land.
Abbas has clearly differentiated himself from the other Palestinian factions by leaving the Joint List and focusing on what his community shares in common with the Jewish people. He has clearly demonstrated that he is open to a different kind of relationship with the State of Israel. And that has been a significant opportunity for Smotrich and the public he represents to take a leading role in redefining what our relationship can be.
Unlike the Israelis who’ve negotiated with Palestinians in the past, Smotrich actually lives Jewish history and has a clear understanding of what renewed Jewish independence means within the context of our people’s ancient story. Forging a nationalist government that’s inclusive of both the UAL and the national religious factions would have been a chance to explore different models of relationships than the one that has existed between our peoples here under Zionism.
If Smotrich and his partners were to follow Rav Eliyahu’s lead and present clear but reasonable terms under which they’d be willing to work with the UAL, it could mark a major turning point in Israeli politics, the likes of which haven’t been seen since Menaḥem Begin’s 1977 victory over the Labor Zionists that had ruled the state since its founding.
Instead of getting stuck in the narrow thinking most of Israeli society is stuck in when it comes to the Palestinian issue, Smotrich should be telling his voters and the country that for the last few decades, the weakest and most westernized sectors of Israeli society have monopolized our relationship with the Palestinians. And as a result, any agreements between our peoples has reflected the interests of that sector.
It’s time for the Jews deeply connected to Jewish identity and our homeland to begin engaging Palestinians in order to see if we can forge a new kind of relationship – not one of colonizer and colonized but one of two proud peoples deeply connected to this land who can share mutual respect and create a society where all our needs are met.
Unfortunately, it is the writer of this article who has missed the point. In effect, HaRav Eliyahu said that if Abbas first recognizes that Hashem gave the Land of Israel to the Jews, then it is possible to talk. Knowing that the Arabs reject this, the Rabbi was pointing out the absurdity of forming a coalition with Arab support. This is the reason the Rabbi refused to meet with Netanyahu, because the Rabbi supports Smotrich’s position completely.