After years in the wilderness, Israel’s oft-neglected Arabs now find themselves with suitors on all sides. Arabs represent 11 percent of all Israeli voters, a crucial bloc in a fractured electorate. But the surprising thing is that the politicians courting the Arab vote are coming from both sides of the political spectrum. Ayida Shibli plans to vote for Azmi Bishara, the first Arab to run for prime minister of Israel. A member of the Knesset and a former philosophy professor, Bishara says he would get rid of the Israeli flag and the national anthem. He’s supported by many Arabs but rejected by their political leaders, who fear he’ll dilute the leftist vote and help give Netanyahu another term. Arabs are also being courted on the right by conservative and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, including Shas and Agudat Yisrael. They sit in a government that has blocked the peace process, but promise to improve Arab living conditions, which, though better than Palestinians’, lag behind those of the rest of the country.
The new courtship revolves around an old campaign tactic. Shas, which controls the Interior Ministry, has already doled out generous budgets to Arab-populated municipalities and promises extra cash infusions if Arabs give the party enough votes to return to office. Deputy Housing Minister Meir Porush, the Agudat Yisrael party leader, says he “would like to give even more money to the Arabs.” Porush’s ministry already hands out $40 million a year to Arab housing projects. “Religious Jews should be good to the stranger.” Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party has Defense Minister Moshe Arens making an extensive tour of Bedouin towns in the Negev Desert.
Some of the campaigns seem to be working. Recent polls say the ultra-Orthodox parties have doubled their support from the Arab electorate since the last election, from 5 percent to 10 percent. Rafik Haj Yihyeh, an Arab and Labor member of Parliament, decided to support Shas after he failed to win a top slot on Labor’s list of Knesset candidates. “It doesn’t matter if they are right-wing,” he says, “so long as they promise equality to Arabs.” That argument rings true in Abu Ghosh, a village where the problems of the Palestinians only a few miles away in the West Bank seem very distant to the 5,000 locals wrestling with an unemployment level double the national average. Mayor Salim Jabr says there is considerable support for Shas because of the financial goodies it hands out. “Our schools and our streets are as important as the peace process,” says Jabr.
Labor won’t give up the Arab vote without a fight. The party has put Yossi Beilin, its most innovative legislator, in charge of promoting Ehud Barak’s campaign for prime minister in the Arab towns. Beilin promises Labor will renew affirmative-action programs dumped by Netanyahu’s government. As one of the architects of the peace agreement, Beilin argues that any future government, right or left, will eventually conclude a full peace deal with Arafat, so the stand on civil rights is what counts. “Equality comes first, and peace comes second for Arab voters,” he says, adding confidently, “They know that equality is not going to be achieved by anyone but us.”
Labor’s new attitude may be more attractive to Israel’s Arabs than simple promises of peace. But if the Arab vote does split between Bishara and the Orthodox parties, Arab politicians’ fears may be realized. Another term for Netanyahu would be a nightmare for them, and not just because of his foot-dragging on the peace process. The prime minister enraged Arab leaders last year when he won a key budget vote with their support, only to turn around and say that, in the future, he would rely on “a Jewish majority” to fight his battles. “It’s a very miserable decision for Bishara to run,” says Abdul Wahab Darawsheh, leader of the Democratic Arab Party. “He has no wisdom. He is an arrogant man.” At least Darawsheh can rely on Bishara not to join up with the right-wing parties. A former communist, Bishara has recruited Ahmed Tibi to run as a Knesset candidate with his National Democratic Party. Tibi’s last job: senior policy adviser to Yasir Arafat. That’s a point of pride for voters like Ayida Shibli, who care less about diluting votes than supporting a candidate in their own image.
