Netanyahu urges opposition to reject Arab MKs who stood for Palestinian anthem but not Israel’s

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called out the behavior of members of the Joint List, who walked out during the singing of Israel’s national anthem at the 26th Knesset’s swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday but stood for the Palestinian anthem at Fatah’s 8th General Congress in May.

He asked Israeli opposition leaders to rule out the idea of bringing such people into Israel’s government.

“No to Hatikvah, yes to a Palestinian national anthem. Eisenkot, Bennett, Lieberman—you want to form a government with them? National unity is the order of the day,” Netanyahu posted to X.

The prime minister has been urging the Yashar party’s Gadi Eisenkot, B’Yachad’s Naftali Bennett and Israel Beiteinu’s Avigdor Liberman to form a unity government with his coalition, rather than seek an alliance with the anti-Zionist Arab parties.

Netanyahu linked his post to a Wednesday evening report on Israel’s Channel 14 television revealing that representatives of all three Arab parties, which ran together in the Israeli elections as the Joint List, were present at the May 14 congress of Fatah, the dominant political faction of the Palestinian Authority.

Ahmad Tibi, head of the Ta’al party, Ayman Odeh, leader of Hadash, and members of the Balad party all attended the Fatah conference, Channel 14 investigative journalist Yishai Friedman reported.

“They are standing for the Palestinian anthem wearing all the scarves and symbols of Palestine and taking pictures with [P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas] and Jamal Zahalka, the chairman of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee,” said Friedman.

The Joint List members also sat in the same row as Zakaria Zubeidi, former Jenin chief of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, who was involved in dozens of attacks against Israelis, and Karim Younes, who took part in the murder of Israeli soldier Avraham Bromberg in 1980.