Haneen Zoabi is a Palestinian politician in Israel and a member of the political office of the Balad party (National Democratic Assembly), which was founded in 1995. She served as a member of the Israeli Parliament from 2009-2019 and participated in the Gaza flotilla in May 2010 aimed at breaking the Israeli siege of Gaza.

This interview took place against the backdrop of the recent endorsement of centrist prime ministerial candidate Benny Gantz by the Joint List, a coalition of Palestinian-majority parties of which Balad was a founding member. This endorsement, which ultimately came to nothing, was rejected by Balad, which refused to add its three coalition votes to those of the other Joint List Arab parties.

The endorsement decision was hailed by many, especially in the mainstream liberal Zionist press, as a welcome sign of Palestinian political pragmatism. In this interview, Zoabi explains why she sees the Joint List’s endorsement as a deeply flawed political move. She also sets out her own conception of the state of the Palestine question, the role of Palestinian parliamentarians in Israel, and the catastrophic absence of a unified Palestinian liberation strategy.