Attorney Noa Levy, a key activist in the Joint List, explains:
I feel there is a need to explain it: What is a blocking bloc, and why isn’t the Joint List asking to enter the government like Ra’am?
The Joint List wants a Jewish-Arab partnership, wants to influence the political reality, and would also like to enter the government, run the country, and improve the overall situation here—and of course, end the occupation, bring about peace, equality, and justice.
But that is not the situation before us. In the situation before us, the next government that will be sworn in over us (hopefully) will, in any case, be an occupying government. The current political conditions have not yet matured to end the Israeli military rule over millions of Palestinians deprived of rights—just this past week, the IDF displaced about 5,000 people from their homes in Hebron as a collective punishment.
Joining the government means signing off on these acts, on the continuation of the occupation, on reserve call-ups to Gaza, on administrative detentions of human beings without charges or proof, on the Judea and Samaria Regulations—the legal basis for the existence of two different legal systems in the occupied territories, one for Jews and one for Palestinians, which is sometimes referred to as apartheid.
Joining the government means being part of coalition discipline, and therefore agreeing to and voting FOR all of this, with your own hands and fingers. It means giving up active, public, and political resistance to the fundamental situation that deeply destroys life in this place for both nations, which corrupts democracy from the inside at its most basic level—that of a regime controlling millions of people who do not vote for it. And if we don’t resist, who will? The voice of opposition to the occupation will disappear from the political arena because we, who have fought against it all our lives, will sit in the government and receive ministries, titles, and budgets.
On the other hand, forming a government does not require all the votes supporting it to belong to parties that join it and become members of it.
A government can be established and stand even when it consists only of parties with fewer than 61 seats, as long as support comes from the opposition benches to prevent its fall in two key votes:
- A vote of confidence in the government
- The vote on the budget
At these two junctions, a government must succeed in securing a majority, or it will fall.
Therefore, for the Joint List, there is the option to support the establishment of an alternative government (which will likely not be the government that ends the occupation, but will meet basic conditions and be better than the current horror we are living in) in the two key votes that will help it rise and exist—and while doing so, continue to fulfill the core of our political role. A role that legislates and influences, but also critiques and opposes; a role that does not stay silent on war crimes, that does not stop fighting against torture and human rights violations; a role that insists on presenting the essential alternative of peace, ending the occupation, a two-state solution, and civil and national equality within the Israeli political map.
The conditions for such support in an alternative government will be determined in direct, eye-level talks between the leaders of the “Change Bloc” and the leaders of the Joint List. However, I have heard the latter express the main points on various occasions, and these are not impossible conditions for any government established here: conditions such as declaring an intention to enter diplomatic negotiations, striving toward equality for Arab citizens, committing to a firm struggle against organized crime, and changing policy regarding house demolitions.
These are not sufficient conditions to be part of a future coalition and a coalition discipline that would paralyze our substantive politics and the alternative we insist on presenting in Israeli reality. But they are sufficient conditions to support anyone who will bring down the government of blood, corruption, slaughter, and disaster of Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, and Smotrich. To bring them down, half a million citizens took to the streets and voted for the Joint List; to bring them down, people went to vote for the first time in their lives—and not necessarily young people.
These first-time voters, who boosted voter turnout in the Arab public, mostly voted for the Joint List and not for Ra’am. Meaning, they knew they were voting for those who would not join any future government while adopting the stance of the occupier and staying silent about the destruction in Gaza, for example. But they knew they were voting for those who would do everything to bring down the government of horrors that has ruined their lives over the past 4 years, including supporting the establishment of another government we won’t agree with—and that is what the Joint List must do.
In conclusion, I will say that this position—which is hard for many of my friends in the Zionist Left to understand and accept—is actually easier in its demands on the members of the Change Bloc. They can receive support without “sitting with us in government”—and after all, such great leaders of “change” don’t want to sit in a government with… Arabs. In that sense, our proposal for a blocking bloc—meaning voices that sit in the opposition, do not enjoy ministerial posts and honors, but enable the government with their votes to exist and operate according to its plans, just as we did as Hadash in Rabin’s government in the 1990s—is a reasonable and realistic proposal relative to the current political climate. It is a proposal that can be accepted, and one that can enable the formation of a government.
In the coming month, I believe we will see many twists and turns from the leaders of the “Change Bloc” and in public discourse regarding the formation of the government, but ultimately I believe they will have no choice but to cooperate to block Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, and Smotrich from returning to power—because only with us will there be change here, as they promised and as the public demands.