Published: 18 January 2021
Last updated: 5 March 2024
EVEN BY THE STANDARDS of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it is an astonishing manoeuvre.
After years of disparagement of Israel's Arab minority, he is now seeking its votes for the March election to stave off being tossed out of office. With the main Arab political grouping, the Joint List, increasingly in disarray, analysts are divided over whether or not Netanyahu can gain a crucial mandate or two by wooing Arab voters.
"If current polls hold, he can't form a government. He needs to draw two or three Arab seats, which could make a difference," said Sam Lehman Wilzig, a political scientist at Bar Ilan University. "I don't know whether the Arab community is gullible enough to fall for it."
Netanyahu raised eyebrows last week by visiting the towns of Tira and Um al-Fahm, ostensibly to monitor how the coronavirus vaccination campaign is going. "He's trying to show his face to Arab voters and say 'here I am. I'm with you." Lehman-Wilzig said.
Then, on January 14, he plunged straight into the Arab political and cultural hub, Nazareth, where he promised that a “new era" of prosperity, integration and security was beginning.
During the visit, he claimed that a 2015 election day video that was widely seen as racist, in which he called for Likud voter turnout because Arabs are voting "in droves", had been misconstrued and that he was referring only to Joint List supporters.
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The Times of Israel quoted eyewitnesses as saying 200-300 people protested Netanyahu's visit and that police reported 19 arrests while clearing the demonstrators.
Videos showed police dragging the demonstrators, including Joint List MKs, behind a barricade despite their parliamentary immunity. Joint List MK Sandos Saleh was treated in hospital for injuries in her hand and back.
The prime minister is relying on short memories, since he was responsible for the Nation State law that favours Jews over Arabs, delegitimised those who voted for the Joint List in the last election and backed the Trump peace plan's provision that would have stripped hundreds of thousands of Arabs of their Israeli citizenship, making them citizens of the Palestinian Authority.
According to that plan, both Tira and Um al-Fahm would no longer be part of Israel. He has also accused Arab legislators of supporting terrorism.
It's a lost war from the beginning. Netanyahu is one of the most hated characters because of his continuous incitement against people and leaders. People see him as responsible for big catastrophes - Sami Abu Shehadeh, Balad MK
Sami Abu Shehadeh, an MK from the hard line Balad faction of the Joint List, told The Jewish Independent that Netanyahu's bid to make inroads among the Arab public is doomed. "It's a lost war from the beginning. Netanyahu is one of the most hated characters because of his continuous incitement against people and leaders. People see him as responsible for big catastrophes."
However, pollster Yousef Makladeh, who heads the independent Statnet Institute in Daliyat al-Carmel, says that if elections were held today, Netanyahu would gain 1.5-2 seats from the Arab electorate. He attributes this largely to disgruntlement with the Joint List, including with its opposition to the normalisation agreement with the Uniited Arab Emirates.
Netanyahu associates in the Likud party are helping his effort. Internal Security minister Amir Ohana is touting a new plan to stem crime and violence in Arab areas, perhaps the number one concern among the Arab electorate.
Other ministers speak openly about luring those who voted for the Joint List, a grouping of four factions that tallied a robust 15 seats last time, but whose popularity has declined sharply due to an internal split and a sense that it did not deliver on its campaign promises.
Zalman Shoval, a former ambassador to the US who is a member of the Likud party central committee does not think Netanyahu's gambit is far-fetched. "Israeli Arabs living in Israel have become more rational and less ideological," he says.
He stresses that under Netanyahu Israeli Arab areas received more funding than under any previous government, with an allocation of 9.3 billion shekels as part of a five-year plan. Funding went to transportation, police and security, education and industry.
Shoval played down Netanyahu's famous racist remark during the 2016 election that Arabs were swarming to the polling stations "in droves".
How can Netanyahu be anti-Arab when he built his whole political program on peace with Arab states? Zalman Shoval, former ambassador to the US
"It can't be seen as anti-Arab. Most people understand this was an on-the-spot decision because not enough people were going to the polls," he said.
"I'm not denying you have members of Likud with an anti-Arab attitude but [they are] not among the leadership," he added.
Referring to the recent normalisation of relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, Shoval asked: "How can Netanyahu be anti-Arab when he built his whole political program on peace with Arab states?"
He added that the Likud Party’s historical forerunner Ze’ev Jabotinsky had stressed equality for Arabs in his writings.
The main issues concerning Arab voters are violence in their towns, discriminatory housing and planning practices based on a law backed by Netanyahu, poverty and the Palestinian issue.
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While the Palestinian occupation is still at the fore for most of the Joint List, its Islamist Raam faction leader Mansour Abbas has broken ranks by putting the stress on internal issues and being in touch with Netanyahu.
Abbas says Arab MKs should support anyone who can help their constituency, be they right or left. Abbas did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this article.
But Ali Salam, the mayor of Nazareth, said he would support Netanyahu, "The Joint List has accomplished nothing," he said. "Netanyahu is prime minister and it is his right to enter the Arab sector and he will succeed in drawing votes. He is better than the others. He has done a good job on the economy and fighting coronavirus. He will stay in power."
But Yusuf Jabareen, an MK from the Hadash faction of the Joint List, countered: "we in the Arab community don't trust Netanyahu because we experienced his policies and legislation over a decade." He said the Nation State law deprives Arab citizens of their right to equality. "We know Netanyahu, know his platform and will continue our efforts to remove him from power."
Jabareen, who comes from Um al-Fahm, added that it is "ironic" that a year after supporting stripping its residents of their Israeli citizenship under Trump's deal of the century, Netanyahu visits to garner their votes. "It won't work. People know him well and understand a cheap manipulation."
READ MORE
As Netanyahu courts Arab voters, Likud rules out coalition with Arab parties (Times of Israel)
PM said to estimate he could get up to five Knesset seats from community he has been seen as vilifying until recently; Nazareth mayor says he ‘believes’ premier, lambasts Ayman Odeh
Netanyahu’s appearance in Nazareth backed the Arab Joint List into a corner (Haaretz)
The internal conflicts within the Joint List sent Netanyahu to Nazareth where he was on the hunt for Arab-Israeli voters
Netanyahu’s lie in Nazareth shows the power of Palestinian citizens of Israel (Haaretz)
Israel's prime minister distinguished between ‘good Arabs’ and ‘bad Arabs’ with the help of the city’s mayor - a ‘good Arab’ - who played his role well in this Orientalist scenario
Anti-Netanyahu protests resume across Israel for 30th week in a row (Haaretz)
In Jerusalem, thousands marched through the city toward Paris Square, the central site of the demonstrations in the capital, adjacent to the prime minister's official residence on Balfour Street
Photo: PM Netanyahu visits a vaccination centre in Tira on December 31, 2020 (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)
