Eisenkot to Netanyahu: hands off Arab Israelis

Gadi Eisenkot, the man tasked with forming Israel’s next government, accused outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday of waging a “racist and aggressive campaign” against the country’s Arab minority.

It is a rare stand for a leading Jewish politician. Arab citizens of Israel, also called Palestinian citizens of Israel, make up about 20% of the population. Their parties, with 19 seats in parliament, are now central to coalition talks after the October 27 election ended with no clear majority.

“They are the target of a racist and aggressive campaign aimed at stripping them of all legitimacy, fuelled by the outgoing prime minister and those around him for political ends,” Eisenkot wrote in a long post on X. 

“It is entirely legitimate to disagree with the representatives of the Arab parties,” he said, but “it is neither legitimate nor acceptable to denigrate an entire community, and I will not allow it.”

The two main Arab parties, the United List and Raam, say they are ready to back Eisenkot’s bloc. Netanyahu has been working to block any such alliance. 

At the opening session of the new parliament on Tuesday, he called Arab lawmakers “supporters of terrorism” and “enemies of Israel” bent on “the destruction of the Jewish state.”

Analysts say the attacks are meant to make a deal with Arab parties unacceptable to the Jewish majority. Divisions in Israeli society have deepened since Hamas’s attacks on October 7, 2023.

Eisenkot has not yet agreed to work with the Arab parties, despite repeated offers from both of them. And his own camp is split. Avigdor Liberman, a nationalist and one of Eisenkot’s key allies, has repeatedly ruled out any pact with them and is pushing instead for an alliance with the ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties.