It seems that for the Left, their political messiah has arrived: Joint Arab List Chairman Ayman Odeh has announced he is willing to join forces with the Zionist parties and realize the vision of Jewish-Arab cooperation that left-wing speakers have longed for in recent months.
Yet despite the excited cries that this is a historic turnaround, we are coming to learn that the collaboration in question is limited in scope and aimed at achieving one thing only in the short-term: the downfall of the right-wing government. Odeh has himself admitted this to be the case. What other common goal could three former IDF chiefs of staff, a former reporter for the IDF's Bamahane newspaper, and Odeh, who acts to prevent the draft of Arab Israelis to the IDF and national service, along with his fellow party member Ahmad Tibi, who served as archterrorist Yasser Arafat's adviser, have?
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
Clearly, one cannot voice opposition to this joint vision in the current media space. Every attempt to point out the agenda of the Joint Arab List and its members is immediately decried as racism. During a recent broadcast, one leading journalist even let it slip that the ruling party was a partner to a petition to outlaw the Joint Arab List, if only to prevent the Arab minority from being represented in the Knesset.
That is quite simply absurd.
No one has a problem with the Arab parties, Arab lawmakers or Arab ministers. There were and are minority representatives in parties represented in the Knesset, including on the Right, and there is nothing preventing others from joining their ranks. The problem lies with a party's or its members' supporting terrorism, identifying with Israel's enemies, opposing Israel's definition as a Jewish state, and slandering Israel around the world.
The Left, thrilled that Odeh has agreed to recognize the legitimacy of an Israeli government, as well as his having agreed to join one, is looking elegantly away from the demands he has set for that to happen.
Will Blue and White MK Zvi Hauser, for example, agree to the Joint Arab List chief's demand to nullify the nation-state law, a law that he himself helped draft? Will former IDF Chief of Staff and Blue and White party head Benny Gantz, who sent his soldiers to map out and demolish terrorists' homes, agree to his potential partner's demand that the demolition of these homes be put to an end? Will his fellow Blue and White leader Moshe Ya'alon, the man who said that we will forever remain in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley, agree to Odeh's demand for a full Israeli withdrawal from these territories? Will Democratic Union member and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak agree to sit alongside Odeh, who just one week ago called for him to step down from the public stage?
The Left needs to explain to itself and the public just where exactly it plans to draw a line. Are they, for the sake of taking down the Right, willing to bring to the government table those whose stated political objective is opposition to a Jewish state? Are they, out of disgust for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, willing to cooperate with characters who support terrorism? The answer, unfortunately, is clear.
