A Debacle Avoided
There was still a mood of panic among the Arab parties as late as lunchtime on election day. Turnout in Arab villages in northern Israel was running at just 10%, around 20% lower than turnout among Jewish voters.
"Whoever fails to go to the polls is practically giving his vote to Liebermann," said Mahamid Wael, secretary of the Muslim committee of the United Arab List (UAL), as he tried to warn his clientele of the dangers of a victory by the ultra-nationalist Moldavian immigrant Avigdor Liebermann, who had been running an anti-Arab campaign.
Politically under threat
The Arab parties had been under threat from several directions. The war in Gaza had left the candidates little time for campaigning. Many of their issues had been forced into the background by the fighting. Turnout was also affected by heavy rain on the day.
For many Arab voters, disappointment at the big Zionist parties, which they felt had started two unnecessary wars in Gaza and in Lebanon, had led to disillusion with the political system. In addition, part of the Muslim movement in Israel had called for a boycott of the polls, as a symbolic act to show the withdrawal of legitimacy from the state of Israel by its largest ethnic minority.
The Arab parties did everything they could to work against the trend. Loudspeaker trucks drove through the villages, calling on the people to do their democratic duty. Volunteers made sure that hundreds of voters got to the polling stations.
The fear that Avigdor Liebermann might do decisively well had its effect. On the day after the poll, Arab politicians breathed a sigh of relief. Turnout was 54 percent – two percent lower than at the last elections – but disaster had been avoided.
Opinion polls had been forecasting the end of the Arab parties, but they won eleven seats. The Communist Party even increased its representation in the Knesset to four.
Hisham Abu Amar, who heads the Communist Party's election team in Tel Aviv, says, "The Arabs have not refused to vote; they have made their voice clearly heard." And Wael concludes, "If you think of the difficulties we faced, we can be very satisfied with the results."
Deep mistrust remains
The split which had been feared between Arab and Jewish Israelis did not occur. There is indeed deep mistrust following the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as the violent incidents in Akko last autumn.
But at the same time, Wael is still able to express his fundamental confidence in the Israeli political system when he says, "We are part of this country and we are part of this system. Elections are the best way for us to represent our interests as a minority in this country."
Gil Yaron
© Qantara.de 2009
Dr. Gil Yaron is a German-Israeli journalist and writer. He is Middle East correspondent for a number of German newspapers as well as for the radio news service of the German Press Agency dpa.
Translated from the German by Michael Lawton
Qantara.de
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