A new joint Jewish-Arab political party, A Place For All of Us, was launched on Tuesday ahead of the upcoming elections, calling for shared leadership and equality in Israeli society between Jews and Arabs.
The list will be led by co-chairs Rula Daood and Alon-Lee Green and will be made up of activists from the Left-wing Standing Together movement.
The party stated that its leaders will be both Arabs and Jews, and present the same political message in Arabic and Hebrew. It seeks to attract voters from all of Israeli society.
A Place for Us All also stated that its goals would be to focus on issues affecting the daily lives of citizens.
Among the points it said it aimed to address were violence and crime, lack of security amid an ongoing war, high cost of living, housing, construction challenges, and lack of educational solutions.
Advancing an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement
The party noted that advancing an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement has been an “urgent issue that has been pushed to the margins.”
It stated that it aims to offer a new political home for Jews and Arabs who "work toward peace, equality, social justice, and the fight against violence and crime."
Party members noted that the goal was not only to replace the current government but also to offer a new direction for the country.
Daood stated while launching the party that A Place for All of Us was "a truly shared Arab-Jewish party, truly equal, that grew from the ground up and will not disconnect from it."
"We are doing this because this is the last moment to save our society," she added, reading the party's formation.
“We are being abandoned, murdered, our future is being burned—and I know that to fix this, it is not enough to only say what we are against.”
Daood is currently the only woman leading a political party in Israel and the first Palestinian woman to head a national political party.
Green stated that A Place for All of Us will "strengthen the effort to remove [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir, [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich, and [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu from power.”
“The party will bring out young voters who, without a Jewish-Arab party, would not have gone to vote,” he added.
Arab parties running in the upcoming elections
Four main Arab parties were running in the upcoming elections: Hadash, Ta’al, Balad, and Ra’am.
Hadash, Ta’al, and Balad announced last week that they would move ahead with reestablishing the Joint List without the Ra’am Party, marking a setback in efforts to reunite all major Arab parties under a single electoral slate.
Currently, the two Arab-Israeli parties in the Knesset are Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al – the latter a reduced Joint List that agreed to run together in the 2022 election.
Hadash-Tal reserves a slot for a Jewish candidate on its list.
The Balad Party, not in the Knesset, continues to fail to pass the electoral threshold in polls on its own.
General elections are scheduled to take place no later than October 27.