Memebers of the Joint List party arrive to the Israeli President Reuven Rivlin to begin talks with political parties over who should form a new government, at his residence in Jerusalem, September 22, 2019. Menachen Kahana/Pool via REUTERS - RC1BF3A36D90

In show of political power, Arab lawmakers back Gantz to lead Israel

Jerusalem: After 27 years of sitting out decisions on who should lead Israel, Arab lawmakers on Sunday recommended that Benny Gantz, the centrist former army chief, get the first chance to form a government over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a watershed assertion of political power.

Ayman Odeh, the leader of the Arab Joint List, wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed published Sunday that the alliance’s 13 incoming lawmakers — the third-largest faction in the newly elected Parliament — had decided to recommend Gantz because it would “create the majority needed to prevent another term for Mr. Netanyahu.”

“It should be the end of his political career,” Odeh wrote.

The Arab lawmakers’ recommendation, which Odeh and other members of the Joint List delivered to President Reuven Rivlin in a face-to-face meeting Sunday evening, reflected Arab citizens’ impatience to integrate more fully into Israeli society and to have their concerns be given greater weight by Israeli lawmakers.

“There is no doubt a historic aspect to what we are doing now,” Odeh said in the meeting with the president, which was broadcast live.

Netanyahu and his Likud party responded furiously to the Joint List’s recommendation, continuing an anti-Arab campaign as if the election was yet to take place.

There was no immediate word from Gantz or his Blue and White party.

Read the article by David M. Halbfinger and Isabel Kershner in The Sydney Morning Herald (from the New York Times).