This issue contains up-to-date information on the political activities of the Arab citizens of Israel in preparation of the upcoming Knesset elections, based on materials from the database of the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation, which operates in conjunction with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. This issue includes editorials, information on the parties’ campaign platforms, key issues in the current elections, and statistics on background issues.

Elections for the 18th Knesset will be held on February 10, 2009. According to official figures of the Central Bureau of Statistics, 14% of the country’s 4.8 million eligible voters (app. 672,000) are Arabs. Four Arab and Arab-Jewish parties will compete for their votes: Raam-Taal (The United Arab List and the Arab Movement for Change), representing the nationalist-Islamist stream in the Arab public; Hadash (The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), incorporating the Israeli Communist Party, advocates Arab-Jewish co-existence; Balad (Democratic National Alliance), representing the secular national stream; and Da’am (Organization for Democratic Action), a small Jewish-Arab party that supports the rights of workers and women. In addition, the Jewish-Zionist parties, led by Labor, Kadima, and Meretz, also compete for the Arab vote.

In the Arab community, the current election campaigns are foreshadowed by external and internal events that have had a direct impact on the Arab community: Israel’s military campaign in Gaza (“Cast Lead”); the decision of the Central Knesset Elections Committee to disqualify Balad and Raam-Taal from the elections; the High Court of Justice ruling revoking the disqualification and permitting these two parties to compete in the elections; the internal Arab debate on boycotting the elections; and concerns over the growing strength of Jewish right-wing extremist parties. These developments are echoed in the election campaigns of the Arab parties. This issue aims to shed light on the topics that play a role in the pre-election political bustle in the Arab community.

The 2009 Elections and the Arab Community: Between Participation and Abstention, Introduction by Prof. Ephraim Lavie

Many scholars who study Arab society and politics in Israel believe that the voting rate of Arabs will continue to be low in the upcoming 18th Knesset elections. According to numerous polls, approximately one-half of all eligible Arab voters will abstain. A gradual drop in voting rates can be seen as a universal development that also characterizes the Jewish population in Israel, whose main cause is the public’s alienation from political parties that inadequately serve its interests. Still, the drop in the participation rate of Arab voters in Knesset elections is indicative of their alienation from the State itself, and is detrimental to Israel’s representational democracy.

The Arab community’s diminishing interest in the elections is augmented by the fact that the Arab MKS representing Arab parties are not generally included in major decision making or policy determination. The Arab parties have never been members of a government coalition. Inclusion of Arab representatives in Zionist party lists, and even the appointment of the first Arab minister in the current government, have merely served to prove the marginal impact of Arabs on government policy: participation of Arabs in electoral politics has so far created no change in the status or the conditions of Arab society in Israel. Many attribute this ineffectiveness to the fragmentation of Arab political power; others attribute it to the quasi-tribal competition that prioritizes narrow affiliations over national interests.

Adding to the fragmentation of Arab politics and the public disappointment of the Arab parties, the Arab public is currently inclined to boycott the 18th Knesset elections in response to the war in Gaza. Ex-parliamentary political organizations, including the Northern Faction of the Islamic Movement and the Sons of the Village, have accentuated their call to the Arab public to abstain from voting. The tendency to refrain from voting grows stronger in view of the failure of Zionist and Arab parties to create a situation in which Arab participation in Knesset elections is both effective and valuable. The Zionist parties have relegated their Arab candidates to relatively low spots on their lists, and supported the Central Election Committee’s decision to disqualify Balad and Raam-Taal. The public interpreted the disqualification as an ideological decision to de-legitimize Arab political participation in Knesset elections.

The Arab parties rallied together to persuade the Arab community to participate in the elections, in order to form a strong Arab bloc able to withstand pressures from Israel’s growing extreme right-wing. The Arab parties employ diverse methods to raise national consciousness and enhance the Arab community’s identification with and support for the parties. For example, the Arab parties rejected the Islamic Movement Northern Faction’s demand to refrain from using the war as a topic in election campaigns, claiming that it is their obligation to express a political opinion on the war. The Arab parties also stress that the major Zionist parties adopted a securityoriented agenda following the war in Gaza and abandoned issues of importance to the Arab public such as resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the socioeconomic crisis. The Arab parties speak of the growing danger of manifestations of racism, hatred and incitement against Arabs in broad sectors of the Jewish majority;

They caution that most Jewish and Zionist parties view the Arabs as a demographic threat and therefore seek to exclude them from Israeli politics, promote legislation to ensure the Jewish character of the state, and restrict the civic national rights of its Arab citizens. The Arab parties hope that Arab voters will continue the trend manifested in recent local government elections and will refrain from voting for the representatives of the major Zionist parties (Kadima, Likud, and Labor).