JERUSALEM (AP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has spent much of his long career turning Israel’s Arab minority into a potential fifth column led by terrorist sympathizers, is openly deciding his support as he seeks re-election in the fourth vote in the country in less than two years.
Few Arabs are likely to heed his call, underscoring the desperation of Netanyahu’s political turn. But the relative lack of incitement against the community in this campaign and the potential rupture of an alliance with an Arab party could diminish participation, to Netanyahu’s advantage. He could even get just enough votes to make a tight election.
Either way, Netanyahu’s openings have shaken the Arab community. The joint list, an alliance of Arab parties that achieved a record 15 seats in the 120-member Knesset last March, is overwhelmed by a dispute over whether it should work with Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud at some point. in which center-left parties were less objective. they are in disarray.
Its demise would leave the community even less representative, as it faces a terrifying wave of crime, coronavirus-fueled unemployment and persistent inequality. But given the complexities of the Israeli coalition system, a separatist Arab party could gain excessive influence if it is willing to work with Netanyahu or other traditionally hostile leaders.
The fighting came to light last week when Netanyahu traveled to Nazareth, Israel’s most Arab-Arab city, his third visit to an Arab district in less than two weeks. Outside the venue, dozens of people, including several members of the Arab parliament, protested his visit and quarreled with police, even as the city’s mayor welcomed him and praised him.
“Netanyahu came as a thief to try to scrape the Arab street votes,” said Aida Touma-Suleiman, a prominent legislator on the joint list. “Your attempt to dismantle our community from within will not succeed.”
Arabs make up about 20% of Israel’s population. They have full citizenship, including the right to vote, and have a broad and growing presence in universities, the health care sector, and other professions. But they face widespread discrimination and blame the laxity of Israeli law enforcement for the growing wave of violent crime in their communities.
They have close family relations with Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, and are largely identified with their cause. This has led many Jews to view them as sympathetic to Israel’s enemies, feelings fueled by Netanyahu, and other right-wing politicians.
On the eve of the 2015 elections, Netanyahu warned his supporters that Arabs were voting “too much”. During the 2019 consecutive elections, his campaign sent poll observers to Arab districts and pushed cameras into polling booths, in what critics said was a ploy. to intimidate Arab voters and raise false allegations of electoral fraud.
These movements occurred dramatically.
The joint list, a difficult alliance of Islamists, communists and other leftists, boosted participation and became one of the largest blocs in parliament. At times, it seemed that it could help deny Netanyahu a majority coalition or even emerge as an official opposition..
But last May, after three blocked elections in less than a year, Netanyahu formed a coalition with his main rival and the joint list was left out of the cold. In the next election, polls indicate that a coalition of right-wing parties and centrists pledged to end Netanyahu’s nearly 12-year rule would be able to oust him without the Arab bloc.
No Arab party has ever called for or been invited to join a ruling coalition.
In Nazareth, Netanyahu claimed that his statements in 2015 were misinterpreted: he only warned Arab voters not to support the joint list.
“All citizens of Israel, Jews and Arabs, must vote,” he said. In other Arab cities, he has visited coronavirus vaccination centers, boasting of his success in getting millions of doses. and encouraging residents to inoculate themselves.
Netanyahu’s Arab spread seems to have given the green light to centrist and left-wing politicians doing the same, with less concern for his right-wing rivals to use it against them. Opposition leader Yair Lapid, Netanyahu’s main center-left opponent, said over the weekend that he was open to forming a government with external support from the joint list.
Meanwhile, the joint list shows signs of breakage. Mansour Abbas, the leader of an Islamist party, has been open in recent months to working with Netanyahu to address issues such as housing and law enforcement. An Abbas aide rejected interview requests.
A large-scale rupture of the joint list could further reduce turnout and potentially leave one or more of its four parties with too little support to cross the electoral threshold.
Thabet Abu Rass, co-director of the Abraham Initiatives, which works to promote equality between Jews and Arabs, says Netanyahu may attract a small number of Arab voters, but that many more of them would simply boycott the election.
“They’re waiting to see if there will be a joint list or not, and if you ask me, it won’t happen,” he said. “This time there are a lot of profound differences.”
A survey conducted in December predicts an Arab participation of around 55%, well below the 65% of last March.
Although historically Arab parties have performed worse on their own, some believe the parties may be more effective individually. In the Israeli political system (which requires potential prime ministers to assemble majority coalitions), small parties often exert excessive influence.
“When we talk about the Palestinian community in Israel, we’re not talking about a bloc, we have different ideologies,” said Nijmeh Ali, a policy analyst at Al-Shabaka, an international Palestinian think tank. “Sometimes you have to break to gain power.”
Netanyahu appears to be focused on margins before a narrow career that could determine not only whether he remains in office, but whether he secures immunity from prosecution for various corruption charges. With just a few seats, a pragmatic politician like Abbas could determine Netanyahu’s fate.
“This is the novelty of Arab politics,” said Arik Rudnitzky, a researcher at the Israel Institute for Democracy. “They are prepared to hold direct negotiations with Likud.”
He said it does not mean they are part of a governing coalition, but they could offer external support to benefit the Arab public. “It could be a win-win situation,” he said.
___
Associated Press reporters Areej Hazboun in Jerusalem and Ami Bentov in Nazareth, Israel, contributed to the report.