Blue and White’s readiness to partner with Arab List contradicts campaign promises

Netanyahu blasted Blue and White for its readiness to join with the Arab List, saying the opposition recognizes no limits in its effort to win. 

By David Isaac, World Israel News

It may be that the Blue and White party has come down with a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Its willingness to partner with the Joint Arab List to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in direct contradiction to its repeated promises on the campaign trail that it would not partner with the controversial anti-Zionist party.

Throughout the campaign for the third Knesset elections, and in fact, for the second one as well, Blue and White leaders treated the Arab Joint List as beyond the pale.

The Joint List’s platform is in favor of the ‘Right of Return,’ meaning the return of millions of Arab “refugees” from Israel’s War of Independence, something that would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish State.

“I am not afraid to speak to any legitimate political party, but the Joint List will not be part of the government I form,” Blue and White leader Benny Gantz said in February, a statement he repeated many times.

One of the top leaders of Blue and White, Moshe Ya’alon, joined in the denial. “You think that I, a former IDF chief of staff, and two other chiefs of staff – when the Joint List works to have us tried in the Hague as war criminals – that we would partner with them? We won’t bring them into the coalition and we won’t rely on them.”

Tzvika Hauser, considered one of the right-wing members of Blue and White, said with less than a month to go before the elections, “We will not partner with parties that support terror or won’t condemn terror.”

On Jan. 29, Israel’s Central Elections Committee disqualified one of the Joint List’s members, Heba Yazbak, basing its decision on a Basic Law – considered to have greater authority than other laws in the Knesset – which bars people from serving in the Knesset who express “support for armed struggle by a hostile state or a terrorist organization against the State of Israel.”

Yazbak, in May 2015, distributed a photo of Samir Kunter on social media and praised him as a “martyred warrior” who died while waging jihad.

Kuntar was a terrorist involved in an infamous 1979 terrorist attack in Nahariya, in which he murdered, among other victims, a little girl by smashing her head repeatedly against a rock.

The Central Election Committee’s disqualification was overturned by the Supreme Court in February.

According to Israel Hayom on Sunday, Blue and White, denied it would work with the Arab List, in an effort to calm its voters, “who at bottom are Zionistic and against joining with the Joint List.”

On Saturday evening, Netanyahu blasted Blue and White for its readiness to join with the Arab List, saying the opposition recognizes no limits in its effort to win.

Blue and White leaders “Benny Gantz, [Moshe] Boogie Yaalon, Gabi Askenazi… promised before the elections said they wouldn’t rely in any shape or form on the Arab List because they’re supporters of terror,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu said the opposition justifies its partnership with the Arab List because one “principle” overrides all others – driving him from power.

Blue and WhiteIsraeli electionsJoint Arab List