Israel’s law might shut Arab parties out of the system

Israeli politics and society need a fundamental change in mindset, says Sharif Nashashibi.

Ayman Odeh, Arab candidate and the head of the "joined list", launches his campaign for the March 17 Knesset elections. Atef Safadai / EPA

The decision by Israel’s main Arab political parties to form a single bloc in next month’s elections has been hailed as an important show of unity. Opinion polls reveal overwhelming support among Israeli Arabs for such a move.

There are widespread expectations that this will increase voter turnout and that this will lead to more seats in the Knesset than the current total of 11.

Political unity among Israeli Arabs is certainly welcome as a means of countering a new election law under which all parties need a minimum of 3.25 per cent of votes, up from 2 per cent, to have a place in parliament.

This new threshold, which translates to roughly four seats, would put all Arab parties at risk. That has spurred accusations that the new law is designed to hinder the Arab presence in the Knesset.

However, there is a danger of pinning too much hope on the effects of this united Arab list, and hence heightening communal disappointment when the expected dividends do not materialise.

There is no guarantee that a higher turnout will lead to more parliamentary seats, not least because Arab votes do not go exclusively to Arab parties. Arab turnout in the last election was three percentage points higher than the previous ballot in 2009 – 56 per cent and 53 per cent, respectively – due to calls from Israeli Arabs and left-leaning Jews to thwart right wing ambitions.

However, the number of seats stayed the same, representing 9 per cent of the Knesset’s 120 seats, although Arabs make up more than 20 per cent of the population. Higher Arab turnout did not stop the formation of a right wing government, widely perceived as the most extremist in Israel’s history. Furthermore, participation was still lower than among the Jewish population (64 per cent).

The united Arab list was formed out of necessity. It would not have come into existence had there not been attempts to squeeze the individual parties out of parliament. As such, it is not a natural alliance, combining Islamists, communists and secularists. This raises questions about the bloc’s viability.

The necessity of a single ticket also risks limiting political pluralism and diversity. “It will weaken the democratic spectrum that the Arab community can choose between,” said Jafar Farah, director of Arab-Israeli civil rights group Mossawa. “The Arab community will not have the ability to choose between different alternatives, which are always limited.”

Since the Arab parties decided to join forces, there have been concerted attempts to limit the bloc’s effectiveness, with Israeli politicians and parties presenting it as a national threat.

A petition to the Central Election Committee seeks to disqualify the united list from participating in the election (right-wing MPs tried to have Arab parties disqualified in 2009 and 2013). Last week, the committee banned Balad party Knesset Member Haneen Zoabi from taking part, without giving a reason.

Fundamentally, however, the success of a united Arab list is limited by the systemic political alienation that Arab parties have always faced. Not a single Israeli government has ever included an Arab party.

In the run-up to the last election, Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party, garnered a reputation as a moderate. The party’s stronger than expected showing made it the second-largest in the Knesset after the combined Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu list, making Lapid a potential kingmaker in forming a coalition government.

However, he quickly ruled out joining Arab parties in a coalition, choosing instead to join a right wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.

An editorial in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said Mr Lapid had “joined those responsible for the dangerous trend of excluding Arabs from the Israeli political process. Their exclusion is a nationalist, undemocratic move” that “increases the alienation that Israeli Arabs feel toward the state”.

Mr Lapid “showed that their participation in the election was for naught, because their representatives are not considered legitimate, even in the view of the new Knesset’s largest centrist party”, the editorial continued. “He cannot conceive of a partnership with an Arab party even on an issue as fateful as heading off the formation of a right wing government.”

Labor chairman Yitzhak Herzog, whose party’s joint list with Hatnuah had a slight lead in opinion polls over Netanyahu’s Likud as the largest parliamentary bloc, said in December that he believed Arab Knesset members would lend him support from outside government.

This is as much as Israel’s polity is willing to give Arab parties: a chance to serve the table without ever getting a seat at it. The continued exclusion of Arab parties and alienation of Arab voters will be difficult to maintain, let alone justify, as this minority is forecast to form a larger proportion of the overall population (25 per cent by 2025).

To do so is gravely detrimental to Israel as a whole, not just its Arab citizens. As such, Israeli politics and society need a fundamental change in mindset. Sadly, however, the current trend looks set to continue for the foreseeable future, regardless of Arab political unity.

Sharif Nashashibi is a journalist and analyst on Arab affairs