Strategic Assessment

This article analyzes the changes in the political leadership of Israel’s Arab minority since the establishment of the Joint List in advance of the March 2015 elections. The essay deals with the change that emerged in the Arab leadership’s strategy as it adopted a social action approach, which corresponds with the dominance captured by social issues in the protests in Israel in the summer of 2011 and elsewhere in the world. In addition, the article examines new difficulties confronting the Joint List since the outbreak of Palestinian violence in the fall of 2015, which brought the heated debate between Israel’s Jews and Palestinians back to center stage. Yet notwithstanding this development, the changes in the Arab leadership represent a basic trend in Israel’s Arab society that can serve as a meaningful opportunity for the Israeli government to promote stability and prosperity in the Arab sector. MK Ayman Odeh’s policy and conduct can encourage restraint of the extremist discourse between Israel’s Jewish majority and the Arab minority; reduce the civil gaps between the sectors; and promote the integration of the Arab population into the Israeli state.