A young Muslim lawyer is in with a chance of becoming the first Arab leader of the opposition in the history of Israel, giving unprecedented influence to a marginalised community.
Ayman Odeh, from the northern city of Haifa, is third in the opinion polls as head of a new coalition of Arab parties taking part in the forthcoming elections.
His leadership of the Joint Arab List, which unites an historically splintered demographic, could leave Arab Israelis closer to the top table than they have been since the formation of Israel almost 70 years ago. He could become the official opposition leader if the country’s main two parties enter a “grand coalition” after the election on March 17.
The hawkish Likud party, headed by Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and the centre-left Zionist Camp, are running neck and neck in the polls with a projected 24 seats out of 120. The Arab List is forecast to take 15.
Centrists, such as the president of Israel, are promoting a coalition because of the way that the country’s increasingly fractured political scene empowers extremists.
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Without such a coalition, Mr Netanyahu and Isaac Herzog, the leader of Zionist Camp, would have to rely on the support of at least two or three fringe parties out of the 11 participating. This could leave the government held hostage by groups that are either pro-settler, religious extremist, left-wing or single-issue parties.
The rise of Mr Odeh, 41, has been swift. He was little known in Israel but, through months of hard work and delicate negotiations, he has managed to knit a band of disaffected and diverse Israeli-Arab parties,made up of communists, Islamists and nationalists, and turned them into a real force.
A key reason for his success is the perception of a growing discrimination at the hands of the Jewish majority, which Arabs say is trying to keep the smaller parties out of the Knesset. At the forefront of this is a law setting a minimum 3.25 per cent voting threshold for entry, prompting the formation of Joint Arab List.
“The last Knesset that was in power was the most racist Knesset. This is why we have to come together and start fighting,” Mr Odeh said, leading his call for change.
Crucially, unlike many firebrand Israeli Arab leaders who are disliked and treated as outsiders by the Jewish Israeli public, he has tried to cultivate a polite, friendly public image and engaged with Jewish Israelis.
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He stayed calm during a televised debate last month when Avigdor Lieberman, the right-wing foreign minister, told him he “wasn’t wanted” in Israel.
“I’m very wanted in my homeland. I’m part of the scenery,” Mr Odeh replied, stressing his commitment to equality.
No Arab parties have ever been included in an Israeli government and Mr Odeh and his supporters have ruled out joining a governing coalition, saying that they could not be part of any government that built settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, or another round of fighting with Hamas militants in Gaza.
However, as well as being a potential leader of the opposition, there is another route to influence for Mr Odeh to take — the Joint List could support a government led by Mr Herzog on an informal vote-by-vote basis from outside the coalition.
Palestinian MPs have done this before, propping up Yitzhak Rabin when he was prime minister in the 1990s and providing him with crucial support to overcome a no-confidence vote after he signed the now-defunct Oslo peace accords with Yassir Arafat, the Palestinian leader.
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Mr Netanyahu and his party, meanwhile, were embroiled in a row last night over whether he has reneged on an earlier pledge to support in principle a two-state peace deal with the Palestinians. He first declared his acceptance of a Palestinian state in 2009 in a famous speech at Bar-Ilan University, in Tel Aviv. However, a pamphlet distributed last Friday said that the prime minister now believed his commitment to be “null and void,” and no longer relevant in a chaotic Middle East.
The Likud party initially reaffirmed the message. “Netanyahu’s entire political biography is the struggle against the establishment of the Palestinian state,” it said in a statement. Hours later, the prime minister’s office contradicted the party, telling reporters that he “never said any such thing”. Mr Netanyahu has himself issued no statement.
Right-wing pro-settler parties were alarmed by a report in the mass-circulation daily newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, which suggested that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had reached a “framework agreement” after secret 2013 talks. The proposed deal included a return to Israel’s pre-1967 borders, with the land-swaps enabling Israel to keep its larger settlements without diminishing Palestinian territory. Mr Netanyahu had previously pledged never to accept the 1967 borders as a basis for a peace agreement between the two.