But regardless of whether it would even prove workable, the very act of asking the Joint List to join a government would open Blue and White to the charge that it’s willing to enter into political negotiations over the Jewish character of the state of Israel rather than treating it as sacrosanct. That is an explosive subject in the country, and one that could well weaken the center and left still further. Netanyahu already sought to weaponize this sentiment when he indicated bluntly on Tuesday night that there can’t and won’t be an Israeli government dependent on Arab parties.

That is precisely where every right-wing populist party in the world would love to force its opposition — into a position of such electoral weakness that its only path to power involves having to reach out to groups or parties widely perceived to be outsiders and even enemies of the political community. This opens the center and left to the charge of disloyalty to the nation and inflames the anger of the right, which begins to identify its own political fate with the fate of the political community as a whole.