The Two-Pronged Palestinian Response to Exclusion Within Israel

Abstract The Palestinian leadership within Israel has undergone a series of political–organizational transformations since 2015, oscillating between cohesive and fragmented mobilization. Why did the leadership fragment, despite both structural and electoral pressures to maintain unity? What explains the rapid nature of these transformations? Relying on 35 interviews with activists and politicians, I argue that declining political opportunities and mounting threats led the Palestinian leadership to pursue unity as a strategic choice in 2015. Crossing a threshold, however, the perception of further diminishing opportunities for change elicited divergent strategic responses between a group that I label “hegemonic-accommodationist,” spearheaded by Mansour Abbas’ United Arab List, and a group that I label “hegemonic-rejectionist,” representing the rest of the Palestinian political leadership. Overall, this study suggests that unity and disunity within ethnopolitical movements are linked to leaders’ perception of opportunity (and the lack thereof).