WASHINGTON Speaking before a crowd of liberal American Jews, Arab Joint List leader MK Ayman Odeh denounced the Israeli Labor Party in biting terms Sunday, accusing it of betraying its principles and failing to stand up to the countrys right-wing coalition government.

He called on the American Jewish left to form a coalition with his own political union of Arab-majority and non-Zionist parties.

You showed up today because we know we cannot rely on the opposition we have, the one that is ready to sell out our values in exchange for power, he told a crowd gathered for J Streets 2017 National Conference in the Washington Convention Center Sunday evening.

He began his half-hour speech at the left-wing advocacy groups annual gathering by recounting the deadly clash last month between residents of the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran and Israel Police officers carrying out court-ordered home demolitions in the village. A resident of the village, Yacoub Mousa Abu Al-Qiaan, was shot by police and then drove his vehicle, possibly unintentionally, into a group of officers, killing 1st Sgt. Erez Levi, 34.

Police officials and politicians, including Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, insisted Abu Al-Qiaan had intentionally rammed the officers in a terror attack, but video footage released by the police seemed to show another officer shooting Abu Al-Qiaan moments before his car accelerated and hit Levi.

Odeh was at Umm al-Hiran that day, January 18, and was lightly injured when he was apparently hit by rubber bullets fired by police.

The Labor party did nothing to stop the order to destroy Umm al-Hiran and leave its residents homeless, he said. It has abandoned the human rights organizations and civil society groups that the right-wing parties attack. And it has failed to provide any real leadership toward ending the occupation and resisting the extremist agenda of the right-wing government.

He went on: They have called themselves the Zionist camp. The right-wing calls itself the national camp. We, Arabs and Jews together, are building a new camp, a democratic camp, that has already begun to show the world what real, principled, and strong opposition looked like.

This is the time for a real opposition, principled, fearless, he said. An opposition led by a Labor party that is a shadow of the right is no opposition at all.

Odeh, who leads the Hadash party within the Joint List faction, also sought to link Netanyahu with US President Donald Trump both of whom are intensely unpopular with his audience.

In Israel, around the world, and here in the United States, those who sit in the halls of power care only about their own power, he accused.

Trump and Netanyahu have cemented their power in the same way regimes have throughout history: with the language of fear and a slow-burning hate, by turning us against one another instead of reminding-us of our shared values and our mutual interests.

J Streets sixth national conference, which runs from February 26-28, will host a number of prominent Democrats on Monday, including numerous members of Congress like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and California Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson were invited but did not respond, the group said.

Then-secretary of state John Kerry and then-vice president Joe Biden spoke at last years conference.

Link:

Odeh tells liberal American Jews that Israel's Labor abandoned its principles - The Times of Israel