The far-left Hadash party has slammed the visit by a Saudi Arabian delegation to Israel, which recently met with senior Israeli officials including Foreign Ministry Secretary-General Dore Gold.
In a statement, Hadash said the visit legitimized what it called Israel's "refusal strategy" towards negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, and urged a total boycott of the Jewish state.
“The recent visit by Saudi personalities, including former general Anwar Eshki, and their meetings with representatives of the Netanyahu government, on the pretext of advancing a dialogue about the Arab peace initiative, were not designed to challenge Israel’s refusal strategy, but to legitimize it by giving Arab 'sponsorship' to voiding the initiative of any content and for eliminating the two-state solution and the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination," the Hadash statement read.
Hadash is part of the Arab Joint List party in the Knesset, but issued its statement independently of the wider Joint List faction.
The statement also highlighted some of the simmering tensions between the various different factions within the Joint List, which was formed as a marriage of convenience in response to Israel raising the Knesset threshold, but which contains a number of unlikely bedfellows.
Hadash - which is mostly Arab but which does have some Jewish members, including MK Don Khenin - is the latest incarnation of the Israeli Communist Party and maintains strong support of the Shiite axis in the Middle East - namely Hezbollah, the Assad regime in Syria and Iran. Hadash party leader Ayman Odeh is head of the Joint List Knesset faction.
In contrast, other Joint List factions such as the Sunni-Islamist Islamic Movement (Southern Branch) in particular, and the secular Arab-nationalist Balad, are aligned with the Sunni Arab world.
In its statement, Hadash referenced those sectarian tensions, much as it did in condemning the assassination of Hezbollah commander Samir Kuntar by Israel.
"The visit is part of the normalization of cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Israel against Iran, Syria and resistance movements in the region," the statement continued.