On his recent visit to the U.S., Ayman Odeh, the leader of the parliamentary coalition of Israeli-Arab parties known as the Joint List, was lauded and cheered by the media. In an effort to promote the sort of Jewish-Arab harmony Odeh allegedly represents, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations invited him to a meeting at its offices. Tellingly, Odeh found a pretext to decline. Jonathan Tobin comments:
Despite the attempt to sell Odeh and his Joint List as a reasonable Arab political alternative to Netanyahu, his bizarre decision to boycott the Conference tells us plenty about the alliance he leads and what his intentions for Israel truly are.
It should be first understood that the attitude of the parties that came together to form the Joint List is not one that is actually compatible with any reasonable notion of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. . . . Ḥadash, the Israeli Communist party that is led by Odeh, seeks not only the end of Israel as a Jewish state but its replacement by a Communist one. . . . Though [the Joint List’s] members don’t necessarily advocate violence to achieve their ends, for the most part they clearly sympathize with those who do. . . .
[Odeh’s] idea of a two-state solution is of an all-Arab Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza alongside an Israel in which the Jewish majority is stripped of its rights of self-determination. That’s a formula for more violence, not peace, let alone coexistence.
Moreover, if Odeh can’t sit down in the New York offices of a Jewish group dedicated to helping its fellow Jews in Israel, how is it possible to imagine his loose coalition of Communists, secular anti-Zionists, and Islamists helping to further peace in the Middle East?
Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/israeli-arab-coexistence/