NAZARETH, ISRAEL // Elias Khoury, a 33-year-old architect from
the village of Ibilin in Galilee, has been a lifelong supporter of the Communist
Democratic Front, the only joint Arab-Jewish party represented in the Israeli
parliament. No longer.
Tomorrow, when Israelis head to the polls to elect their next
government, Mr Khoury – one of the country’s 1.2 million Arab citizens – will be
staying home rather than casting a vote.
“I’ve given up on the talk of coexistence,” he said. “Now it’s
clear it is just empty rhetoric. After the attack on Gaza, I am sure there will
never be two states here. It’s going to be either a Jewish state with no Arabs,
or an Arab state with no Jews. Voting any Arab party into the parliament is a
waste of time.”
His ominous vision of the future reflects disillusionment with
the Israeli political system, he said, rather than extremism. “We are living in
an extreme situation imposed on us by Israel.”
Mr Khoury will be joined by a substantial number of others in his
boycott. According to recent surveys, slightly less than half the Arab
electorate is expected to vote this week, a far cry from the 77 per cent who
turned out in 1996, when the Oslo process still promised a solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The principal victims of a low Arab turnout will be the
Democratic Front and two exclusively Arab parties, which currently have 10
legislators between them in the 120-member parliament.
The causes of the alienation felt by most Arab citizens – who
comprise one fifth of the country’s population – are not difficult to divine.
They are still smarting from the rock-solid Jewish consensus behind the recent
Gaza offensive as well as accusations of treason they faced as a community for
opposing the military operation.
Those feelings have been compounded by the overnight
transformation of Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of a party even Israeli
commentators describe as fascistic, into a figure of national authority.
Mr Lieberman’s party, Yisrael Beiteinu, is expected to come third
in the election, making him pivotal in deciding whether the coalition government
will be led by the Kadima or Likud parties. He is also certain to garner a
high-profile post in the cabinet under either party.
His popular campaign slogan – “No loyalty, no citizenship” –
refers to a plan to revoke the citizenship of Arabs who fail to pledge an oath
of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state. Many of his supporters, meanwhile,
prefer chants of “Death to the Arabs”.
Ahmad Saadi, a political scientist at Ben Gurion University in
the Negev town of Beersheva, said he expected a widespread boycott, adding that
Arab turnout in elections had been steadily declining for the past decade.
“Since the end of the Oslo accord, the idea of peace, which has
always been at the forefront of the Arab parties’ platforms, has sounded
increasingly hollow,” he said. “Fewer Arab citizens believe there will ever be a
Palestinian state. Disillusionment has set in.”
In addition, Dr Saadi said, it has become apparent to most Arab
voters that neither they nor their representatives will have any say in the
important decisions facing the country.
Two Arab groups, the small nationalist Sons of the Village and
the Islamic Movement, have campaigned for many years against participating in
parliamentary elections. “They say voting gives legitimacy to a decision-making
process from which the Arab minority is entirely excluded. That view is gaining
wider currency in each election.”
Dr Saadi, however, said he believes the rise of Mr Lieberman may
spur some Arab voters into action. “There is a fear that the greater influence
of the far right demands a response, that we need strong representation to
challenge Lieberman’s ideas.”
Both the Likud and Kadima leaders, Benjamin Netanyahu and Tzipi
Livni, have echoed Mr Lieberman’s main themes in their own speeches, partly in
the hope of winning his support during the coming coalition negotiations but
also because they share some of his key ideas. Mr Netanyahu declared last week
that Yisrael Beiteinu’s campaign against the Arab minority was “legitimate”.
In the past he has been vocal in calling the minority a
“demographic threat” to the Jewishness of the state.
Ms Livni, meanwhile, has demanded that all Israelis either serve
in the army or perform national service, echoing Mr Lieberman’s comments that
such service would be one way for the Arab minority to prove its loyalty.
Recently she has said the creation of a Palestinian state would also solve the
national ambitions of Arab citizens, implying that their future is not in
Israel.
Mr Lieberman, however, may have inadvertently bolstered the two
solely Arab parties contesting the elections, the National Democratic Assembly
and the United Arab List, through his popular but ultimately unsuccessful bid to
have them banned – a move that may yet rally some potential boycotters into
voting.
Dr Saadi said Israeli politics was drifting noticeably
rightwards, polarising Arab voters into either those resigned to permanent
exclusion from the political process or those determined more than ever to make
the Arab voice heard.
According to rumours in the Israeli media, Mr Lieberman began his
political career in the Kach movement, outlawed in 1994 as a terrorist
organisation. Kach campaigned for the expulsion of all Arabs from an expanded
Greater Israel.
At least two other parties in these elections are fielding
candidates who formerly belonged to Kach. One, Michael Ben-Ari of the National
Union, is proposing what he calls a “humanitarian corridor” to allow Arab
citizens to leave to other countries, and hopes to raise funds to provide them
with “acclimatisation grants”.
The other, Baruch Marzel of Eretz Yisrael Shelanu, has adopted a
more confrontational approach with the Arab minority. A hardline settler from
Hebron, he has been lobbying for several months to be allowed to stage a Jewish
Pride march through one of Israel’s largest Arab towns, Umm al Fahm.
Last week, much to the disbelief of town residents, he revealed
that he would be arriving in an official capacity as the head of the election
committee appointed to oversee voting in Umm al Fahm.
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