Summary
Leader of Al-Jabhah (Hadash) and of the Joint List, whose “impact policies” of Palestinian integration into Israeli state institutions Soheir Asaad criticizes in Chapter 16 of From the River to the Sea as a fantasy that defused political differences in ‘48 Palestine (From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine, lines 1147-1155).
Details
- Odeh’s organization advanced a discourse of shared Arab-Jewish working-class interests, which Asaad says served to whitewash colonial power relations under the guise of coexistence (line 1147).
- Under Odeh the Joint List, formed in 2015, pursued integration into ministries, governmental companies and courts, excluding only three ministries — foreign affairs, defense, and Aliya and Integration — as manifestations of the Jewish nature of the state, though Asaad argues the Zionist core is in every arm of the state (lines 1149-1153).
- Individual Palestinian advancement in banking, medicine and high-tech was celebrated as collective achievement, while integration followed the needs of the Israeli economy, not of Palestinians (lines 1153-1155).
Related pages
From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine, Soheir Asaad, Unity Intifada