Bad News for Israel
Jan. 24th, 2003 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldIsraeli Arabs lose faith in democratic process
Many ambivalent about Jan. 28 vote, not wanting to legitimize government
By PAUL ADAMS
NAZARETH, ISRAEL -- Strolling through Nazareth's Arab market these days, no one would have any doubt that an election is under way. Posters for Israel's many Arab parties vie for attention with those from the left-leaning Labour and Meretz parties.
For decades, Ahmed Shehade has run a small music store in the Nazareth market. His shelves are stocked with an incongruous mixture of religious tapes with pictures of severe-looking Islamic clerics on their cases, and cassettes of Arab popular music, decorated with images of young women casting seductive gazes. Mr. Shehade said he has voted only once in the past 30 years, and even that was a mistake.
"Democracy only applies to the Jews, not to the Arabs," he said. "This is what happens in a Jewish state."
Many Arab Israelis have become fed up with a system in which the formal legal equality they enjoy doesn't square with the inferior treatment they receive in everything from education to building permits to garbage removal.
Still, some Israeli Arabs think the vote is one of the few levers they have to improve their situation. "I have an Israeli passport," said Aboud Aboud, standing in his shoe shop. "I have to give my opinion. We have to take a stand."
Arabs make up more than a sixth of the Israeli electorate. The presence of Arab members in the Knesset (parliament) has been a visible symbol of Israel's claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. For years, the Arab vote was also an important element in the Labour Party's domination of Israeli politics, despite its Zionist ideology.
But Israeli Arabs have experienced a series of blows in recent years that have loosened their attachment to the political system. The last Labour prime minister, Ehud Barak, publicly declared his desire to win a majority among Jewish voters -- spurning his party's Arab support, in effect.
He was in office in 2000, when 13 Israeli Arabs were shot dead during demonstrations in support of the uprising in the Palestinian territories.
In a prime ministerial election a year later, most Arab Israelis boycotted the polls. Just 18 per cent turned out to vote.
More Israeli Arabs are expected to cast a ballot this time. Part of the reason is a recent attempt to ban two of the most popular Arab-Israeli politicians, Azmi Bishara and Ahmed Tibi.
Israel's election commission, which consists mainly of members of the Jewish-dominated political parties, ordered the two men struck from the ballot on the grounds that they were opposed to the existence of the Jewish state.
In an eloquent address to Israel's Supreme Court, Mr. Bishara, a charismatic former philosophy professor, argued that his belief in a secular Israeli state does not mean that he opposes its Jewish character. The court overturned the banning order.
After the judgment, Mr. Bishara said: "Arabs in Israel will have a feeling that they are not orphans of Israeli democracy. They are citizens of Israel."
Awad Abed Fattah, the general secretary of Mr. Bishara's Balad Party, said the controversy had energized the Arab electorate. "At the beginning of the campaign, Palestinians were quite indifferent," he said. "But the attempt to ban us caused people to become more interested in the election."
Still, there is little reason for Israeli Arabs to believe their lot will improve as a result of the election, and few expect Arabs to turn out in the numbers they once did.
"These elections won't bring anything new, whether at the level of Israeli society, the level of the Arab population, or regarding Jewish-Arab relations in Israel," said Professor Majid AlHaj, an Arab Israeli who teaches sociology at Haifa University. "More and more Arabs think that voting has no effect except to give Israel an appearance of legitimacy as a democratic state."
Many ambivalent about Jan. 28 vote, not wanting to legitimize government
By PAUL ADAMS
NAZARETH, ISRAEL -- Strolling through Nazareth's Arab market these days, no one would have any doubt that an election is under way. Posters for Israel's many Arab parties vie for attention with those from the left-leaning Labour and Meretz parties.
For decades, Ahmed Shehade has run a small music store in the Nazareth market. His shelves are stocked with an incongruous mixture of religious tapes with pictures of severe-looking Islamic clerics on their cases, and cassettes of Arab popular music, decorated with images of young women casting seductive gazes. Mr. Shehade said he has voted only once in the past 30 years, and even that was a mistake.
"Democracy only applies to the Jews, not to the Arabs," he said. "This is what happens in a Jewish state."
Many Arab Israelis have become fed up with a system in which the formal legal equality they enjoy doesn't square with the inferior treatment they receive in everything from education to building permits to garbage removal.
Still, some Israeli Arabs think the vote is one of the few levers they have to improve their situation. "I have an Israeli passport," said Aboud Aboud, standing in his shoe shop. "I have to give my opinion. We have to take a stand."
Arabs make up more than a sixth of the Israeli electorate. The presence of Arab members in the Knesset (parliament) has been a visible symbol of Israel's claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. For years, the Arab vote was also an important element in the Labour Party's domination of Israeli politics, despite its Zionist ideology.
But Israeli Arabs have experienced a series of blows in recent years that have loosened their attachment to the political system. The last Labour prime minister, Ehud Barak, publicly declared his desire to win a majority among Jewish voters -- spurning his party's Arab support, in effect.
He was in office in 2000, when 13 Israeli Arabs were shot dead during demonstrations in support of the uprising in the Palestinian territories.
In a prime ministerial election a year later, most Arab Israelis boycotted the polls. Just 18 per cent turned out to vote.
More Israeli Arabs are expected to cast a ballot this time. Part of the reason is a recent attempt to ban two of the most popular Arab-Israeli politicians, Azmi Bishara and Ahmed Tibi.
Israel's election commission, which consists mainly of members of the Jewish-dominated political parties, ordered the two men struck from the ballot on the grounds that they were opposed to the existence of the Jewish state.
In an eloquent address to Israel's Supreme Court, Mr. Bishara, a charismatic former philosophy professor, argued that his belief in a secular Israeli state does not mean that he opposes its Jewish character. The court overturned the banning order.
After the judgment, Mr. Bishara said: "Arabs in Israel will have a feeling that they are not orphans of Israeli democracy. They are citizens of Israel."
Awad Abed Fattah, the general secretary of Mr. Bishara's Balad Party, said the controversy had energized the Arab electorate. "At the beginning of the campaign, Palestinians were quite indifferent," he said. "But the attempt to ban us caused people to become more interested in the election."
Still, there is little reason for Israeli Arabs to believe their lot will improve as a result of the election, and few expect Arabs to turn out in the numbers they once did.
"These elections won't bring anything new, whether at the level of Israeli society, the level of the Arab population, or regarding Jewish-Arab relations in Israel," said Professor Majid AlHaj, an Arab Israeli who teaches sociology at Haifa University. "More and more Arabs think that voting has no effect except to give Israel an appearance of legitimacy as a democratic state."
