Yesterday, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the Knesset by video. Members of the Joint List, a parliamentary alliance of majority-Arab parties, decided as a group not to attend. The editors of the Jerusalem Post comment:

The only Jewish member in the faction, the Ḥadash MK Ofer Kassif, explained his position on Saturday night,: . . . “we hear in the Western media, and also here, day and night, that this war is the like war of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness. . . . But it isn’t. For years there were crimes against the Russian minority in Ukraine.”

Hadash is the current form of the Israeli Communist party. It is the biggest and most popular among Arab-Israelis. . . . In October 2020, the party officially voted against the approval of the Abraham Accords—the peace agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. In October 2016, the party boycotted the funeral of Israel’s former president Shimon Peres, who won a Nobel Peace Prize and was one of the initiators of the Oslo Accords.

In December [2017], while Syrian President Bashar Assad was using chemical gas against his own people during the war in Syria, Ḥadash put out a statement supporting him and commending him for regaining control over the city of Aleppo. [In short], the Israeli Communist party sees the U.S. and its actions as the source of all evil as if the cold war is still going on.

Luckily, it seems that Israeli Arabs have an alternative—Ra’am—a party that wishes to advance their interests even at the cost of partnering with Israeli Zionist parties

Considering the current state of Israel-Arab relations, Ghaith al-Omari writes

First and foremost, no ceasefire will be possible without the release of Israeli hostages and commitments to disarm Hamas and remove it from power. The final say on these matters rests with Hamas commanders on the ground in Gaza, who have been largely impervious to foreign pressure so far. At minimum, however, the United States should insist that Qatari and Egyptian mediators push Hamas’s external leadership to accept these conditions publicly, which could increase pressure on the group’s Gaza leadership.

Washington should also demand a clear, public position from key Arab states regarding disarmament. The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas endorsed this position in a June letter to Saudi Arabia and France, giving Arab states Palestinian cover for endorsing it themselves.

Some Arab states have already indicated a willingness to play a significant role, but they will have little incentive to commit resources and personnel to Gaza unless Israel (1) provides guarantees that it will not occupy the Strip indefinitely, and (2) removes its veto on a PA role in Gaza’s future, even if only symbolic at first. Arab officials are also seeking assurances that any role they play in Gaza will be in the context of a wider effort to reach a two-state solution.

On the other hand, Washington must remain mindful that current conditions between Israel and the Palestinians are not remotely conducive to . . . implementing a two-state solution.