Last night the Israeli foreign minister, Tzippi Livni, won the Kadima primary. Amid all of the talk that will occur in the coming days, one point stands out: the contest between Livni and her main rival, Shaul Mofaz, who apparently came within an astonishing 500 votes of winning, included heavy voting by Israeli Arabs. So much so, in fact, that Arab votes actually decided the election. Click here if you don’t believe me.

If Livni ends up being able to form a coalition and thereby become Prime Minister, she will have to an unprecedented degree Israeli Arabs to thank for her victory. Is there another place in the Middle East where the average Arab enjoys more political power than in Israel? Perhaps in Iraq. But otherwise — nowhere. This is a profoundly important point, and it was demonstrated irrefutably yesterday. It is also rigorously, obsessively, ignored by Israel’s detractors.