This Arab Lawmaker Can’t Save the Remnants of Israel’s Democracy Alone
On the attempt to expel MK Ayman Odeh from the Knesset
When I began meeting with Congressional staff about Israel-Palestine in 2017, I realized it was not enough to educate them about the occupation and the need for US policies that would end it and foster peace between Israelis and Palestinians. As Director of Policy and Government Relations for Americans for Peace Now, that was my job. I understood that I would also need to help Hill staff understand the extent to which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s successive governments had eroded liberal democracy in Israel – and how the occupation, illiberalism, and democratic retrenchment were mutually reinforcing.
It was early in the first Trump Administration then, and pointing out how President Trump’s attacks on democracy here in the US followed a populist authoritarian playbook employed by Netanyahu and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán helped underscore the point.
Fast forward to 2025. The European Parliament has declared that Hungary is no longer a democracy, but rather an “electoral autocracy.” Other democracies, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s India, have similarly deteriorated. As the Israel Democracy Institute notes, Israel has continued its democratic decline, with the V-Dem Institute demoting Israel from a liberal democracy to an electoral democracy for the first time in over 50 years. In his second term, Trump is catapulting the US toward authoritarianism at “a truly alarming speed.”
Here at The Debrief, I’ll continue to cover various aspects of the global democratic retrenchment. For the moment, I want to focus on a significant development in Israel: the attempted expulsion of MK Ayman Odeh from the Knesset. While proponents of expulsion failed to muster the necessary super-majority of 90 votes in the 120-seat Knesset, the substantial support for ousting Odeh – including from centrists in the opposition – should raise alarm bells.
Born to an Arab Israeli family in Haifa, Odeh has chaired the Hadash Party since 2006 and currently leads the Hadash-Ta’al combined list in the Knesset. He has long fought for equality and civil rights for Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel alike – for example, he was party to “The Democratic Constitution” for Israel proposed in 2007 – and supports a two-state solution. Two years ago, Odeh announced that he will not seek another term in the Knesset.
While predominantly an Arab party, Hadash receives support from some Jewish Israelis who count on it “to support justice and equality and civil rights, to strive for peace, to champion coexistence, and to recognize the humanity of both Israelis and Palestinians.”
In January, MK Avichai Buaron of Netanyahu’s Likud Party launched the process to impeach Odeh, after the latter made a post to social media celebrating the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Odeh wrote, “Happy about the release of the hostages and prisoners. From here, we must free both peoples from the burden of occupation. We were all born free.” A firestorm ensued, with MKs in the Netanyahu government and the opposition expressing outrage at Odeh’s juxtaposition of hostages kidnapped on October 7th and “despicable terrorists.”
While Odeh expressed regret that his comment hurt some hostage families, he noted that many of the released Palestinian prisoners had been held without charge, including children and women. Their release moved him – as did the return of the Israeli abductees. As Odeh put it, “My perspective as a Palestinian citizen of Israel probably differs from the perspective of many Jewish citizens of Israel. While it is clear that many of you tend to see primarily the Jewish suffering, I see and feel the suffering of both peoples.”
On June 30, a Knesset committee advanced Odeh’s impeachment by a vote of 14-2, with all Jewish members of the panel voting in favor and the two Arab MKs voting against. The lawmakers voted to proceed with expulsion – including members of the centrist Yesh Atid Party – despite guidance from the Knesset legal adviser. She indicated that it was “doubtful whether [Odeh’s] statement meets the test of support for an armed struggle by a terrorist organization,” the grounds for removal under the 2016 Impeachment Law.
The vote on expulsion by the full chamber was 73-15. While over 60 percent of MKs voted in favor, they fell short of the 90 MKs required to remove Odeh. Some opposition MKs voted to expel, including Avigdor Liberman’s right-wing Yisrael Beitenu Party and five of Yesh Atid’s 23 MKs. Yesh Atid’s remaining MKs were absent, along with Benny Gantz’s Blue and White Party and the MKs of United Torah Judaism. While part of Netanyahu’s coalition, UTJ skipped the vote to protest an unrelated issue: the government’s failure to pass legislation exempting ultra-Orthodox men from the draft. Hadash-Ta’al, Ra’am (a religious Arab Muslim party), and The Democrats (the remnant of the Zionist left) voted against.
Odeh emerged defiant after the failed vote to oust him, emphasizing Palestinian-Jewish solidarity:
“Palestinians and Jews, from every corner of this land and from around the world, stood up, spoke out, and refused to be ignored. We will continue to stand tall against fascism, against the war of annihilation, and against the occupation. We will stand tall. And we shall overcome.”
Odeh’s proclamation of victory notwithstanding, the narrowly failed attempt to eject him from the Knesset is a symptom of the decline of Israeli democracy. Incitement against Israel’s Arab population, which comprises roughly 21 percent of residents, is a key piece of the deterioration. It has occurred at the highest levels, with Netanyahu famously warning against “Arab voters heading to the polling stations in droves” in the 2015 election.
When the 2016 Impeachment Law was passed, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel warned that “Arab MKs whose actions and remarks do not find favor with the political majority will be the first people harmed by the bill – however it is a slippery slope and the bill has potential to affect all MKs.” It should come as no surprise that the law was weaponized against Odeh – and was also wielded against Ofer Cassif, a Jewish MK in Odeh’s Hadash Party who was nearly impeached for supporting South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
A recent survey of Jewish Israelis found an alarmingly high level of support for what can only be termed ethnic cleansing – and I do not use this term lightly. According to the poll, 56 percent supported expelling Palestinian citizens of Israel, while 82 percent favored forcibly transferring Palestinians from Gaza. (That poll has been criticized by Tel Aviv University scholars whose own survey found support for transferring Gazans among 53 percent of Jewish Israelis – still a majority, but far less than the first poll. The second survey did not ask about expelling Arab Israelis.)
While a majority of his fellow MKs voted to expel Ayman Odeh for sympathizing with Palestinian prisoners, no action has been taken against Jewish MKs who have engaged in racist incitement against Palestinian citizens of Israel. For example, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s powerful Finance Minister, acted with impunity when he told Arab MKs from the Knesset podium in 2021 that, “You’re here by mistake, it’s a mistake that [Prime Minister David] Ben-Gurion didn’t finish the job and didn’t throw you out in 1948.” So it should come as no surprise that during the debate over Odeh’s impeachment, some Jewish MKs hurled baseless invectives at Odeh, calling him a “terrorist” and a Hamas representative, while telling him to “go to Gaza.”
In this toxic environment, the four Jewish MKs from The Democrats merit recognition for voting against Odeh’s impeachment. The party’s leader, Yair Golan, articulated the stakes:
“[Odeh’s] ouster is another victory for the nationalist-extremist government over a secure and democratic Israel. This morning it’s Ayman. This afternoon it’s the public broadcasting corporation. Tomorrow it’s the attorney general. The day after tomorrow—it’s you. Wake up.”
Centrists, nonetheless, failed to oppose the measure, with some even supporting it. Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who chairs Yesh Atid and was briefly prime minister in 2022, abstained from the vote but had previously expressed support for expelling Odeh: “Anyone who speaks like this should not be a member of Knesset.” Presumably, Lapid thinks that the path to power is by appealing to voters who are to the right of his party. Instead, he is helping to degrade what remains of Israeli democracy and sending the message to Palestinian citizens of Israel that their votes can be overturned. Arab voters are a natural constituency opposed to Netanyahu’s rule, and depressing Arab electoral turnout is a long-term goal of the Israeli right wing and a means for it to maintain political power indefinitely. Orly Noy notes that without significant turnout by Arab voters, politicians like Lapid “will continue to staff the opposition benches until they grow old.”
In order to arrest Israel’s anti-democratic slide, the Jewish-Arab solidarity that Odeh espouses is essential. As a minority group, Palestinian citizens have strong incentive to support civil rights and equality for all Israelis. Despite tensions between the communities, it is vital that Arab and Jewish Israelis find common ground – as Odeh and civil society groups like Standing Together admirably strive to do.
US Senators Bernie Sanders, Peter Welch, and Chris Van Hollen correctly characterized the attempt to impeach Odeh:
“This effort is not merely a personal attack on one parliamentarian – it is a grave assault on democracy, pluralism, and freedom of expression… And this expulsion effort sends a chilling message to millions of Palestinian citizens of Israel: that their representation is conditional and their rights revocable. Such a message has no place in any democratic society.”
Ayman Odeh is committed to saving what remains of Israel’s democracy, but he can’t do it alone – and he shouldn’t have to.