Jafar Farah told The Telegraph he expected both the Joint List and Ra’am to recommend that Gadi Eisenkot, the former IDF chief of staff, become prime minister, ousting Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mr Farah is director of the Mossawa Centre, an advocacy group for Arab citizens of Israel. He stood as a Joint List candidate until he withdrew during the campaign.
The Israeli election produced a stalemate on Tuesday, with neither of the two main Jewish blocs large enough to form a government.
“The Joint List will recommend Eisenkot to become the candidate for prime minister,” Mr Farah told The Telegraph. “Maybe the three seats of [the nationalist Arab party] Balad will refuse, but the others will probably recommend.”
He added that he thought the Joint List would also “sit and negotiate” with the Jewish opposition bloc over the four principles Mr Eisenkot has set out for any party to formally join with it in government, which include commitment to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and recognition of Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
“There will be negotiation … secretly maybe in the near future, he will send his representatives to sit and talk … Publicly, maybe it will happen only after the recommendations,” he said.
Mr Farah is director of the Mossawa Center, the advocacy hub for Arab citizens of Israel and an important player in Arab-Israeli politics.
Ultimately, Mr Farah said he was not optimistic a joint Arab-Israeli government could be formed, noting resistance from the right was extreme.
“I am not sure that Eisenkot will be brave … I think he will know he could be killed … killed in the way that Rabin was killed in ’92 [sic]”.
Asked for his best bet, Mr Farah said it was possible that a minority opposition bloc would be formed with informal support from the Arab parties until Mr Netanyahu’s ongoing trial for corruption ended, perhaps in the spring.
“If there will be conviction of Bibi in ’27, then they will create a national [Jewish] government,” he said.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/d91cf48c3b0ae560
