The Palestinian Authority reportedly intervened in efforts to unite three Arab-Israeli parties ahead of Israel’s Oct. 27 election, seeking to prevent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming another government.
According to a Channel 12 report, Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas and other officials applied heavy pressure on Hadash, Balad and Ta’al to run together as a Joint List. The concern was straightforward: if the parties competed separately, some or all could fail to clear Israel’s 3.25% electoral threshold.
The parties announced their joint slate on Aug. 19. Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, is expected to run independently.
Political parties are free to form alliances, and Arab citizens of Israel are fully entitled to organize and vote according to their convictions. But reported intervention by the Palestinian Authority is a different matter.
The PA is not a neutral observer of Israeli politics. It is an outside political body with a long record of hostility toward Israeli governments it considers insufficiently accommodating to its demands. Its reported aim was not merely to encourage voter participation, but to shape the composition of Israel’s next Knesset and block a particular Israeli leader from returning to office.
That crosses an important line.
Israelis may disagree sharply over Netanyahu, the war, the future of Judea and Samaria and the country’s political direction. Those disputes belong to Israeli citizens. They should be decided at the ballot box by Israelis—not influenced behind the scenes by Ramallah.
The reported PA involvement should concern every Israeli who believes national elections must remain free from outside political manipulation.
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