Yair Golan, chair of the left-wing Democrats party, said Sunday that an Arab party could be part of the next government, exposing a fault line among opposition leaders less than a day after they met to coordinate their campaigns and pledged not to attack one another ahead of the October 27 election.

“We believe that an Arab party can be part of the government. It is natural, right, appropriate and democratic,” Golan told the Kan public broadcaster.

Golan added that such a partnership would represent “genuine change after years of incitement.”

Shortly after the interview, the Democrats issued a clarification stressing that Golan was only expressing the party’s position, which seeks to “promote Jewish-Arab partnership and the integration of Arab citizens of Israel into the leadership of the state after the elections,” and said that the possibility of including an Arab party in the next coalition “did not come up” during Saturday night’s meeting of opposition leaders.

Ahead of the meeting, Gadi Eisenkot, head of the centrist opposition Yashar party, vowed in an interview with Channel 12 not to include the Arab-led Ra’am party, which has Islamist roots, in any potential government he leads. Other opposition chiefs have also rejected the possibility of sitting with Arab parties in their coalition.

Ra’am, which was part of a government that briefly........

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