When Israeli Arab demonstrators converged outside the Prime Minister’s Office this week to demand government approval to develop a new industrial zone, a tense situation ensued.
The last thing Prime Minister Shimon Peres needed on the eve of the May 29 elections was a skirmish between police and some 300 residents of Umm-el-Fahm, the second largest Arab town in Israel.
In the end, a clash was averted Sunday when Benny Shilo, the premier’s adviser on minorities, arranged a meeting between the demonstrators and Zvi Alderotti, director general of the Prime Minister’s Office.
For the protesters, the apparent foot-dragging on a project that could have great economic potential for their depressed town gave them another reason to believe that Peres does not deserve the much-needed continued support of Israeli Arabs.
But they may not have any choice: The Israeli Arabs need Peres as much as he needs them.
With this own political future potentially dependent on the Israeli Arabs in next week’s balloting, Peres have been heavily courting the nation’s 440,000 registered Arab voters.
Despite the muscle-flexing of Israeli Arab leaders, however, more and more Arab voices are pushing for Peres.
Samih el-Kassem, editor of the Arabic weekly Kul el-Arab, published in Nazareth, warned that abstentions in the race for prime minister would translate into support for Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu and that it was the national duty of Israeli Arabs to block the right wing’s return to power.
“We cannot disregard the differences between Peres and Netanyahu,” said Kassem in an interview with Al-Ayyam, an Arabic daily in eastern Jerusalem.
“Labor abolished the clause in its platform against a Palestinian state, while the Likud continues to oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state and promises to build more settlements.”
Until last month’s operation in Lebanon, Arab support for Peres was considered guaranteed. The past four years have been an extended honeymoon between the Labor government and the Arab population of Israel.
For its part, the government depended heavily on the goodwill of the Arabs. In the outgoing Knesset, the two Arab parties – the Arab Democratic Party and Hadash – gave Labor the necessary votes to block the opposition and sustain its coalition.
In return, the government took unprecedented steps to benefit Arab citizens.
For the first time, Arab families are entitled to receive the same child allowances granted to Jewish families. And government funds to Arab communities have more than tripled since 1992, exceeding $300 million this year.
The government also plans, if it stays in power, to pump more than $80 million into Nazareth alone, to help turn the Arab capital of the Galilee into a major tourist attraction by the year 2000.
Beyond the material assistance, political realities changes as well.
For the first time in the history of the state, Arab parties found themselves on the same side of the political fence as the governing coalition, giving them a new-found degree of legitimacy.
This development was no doubt a by product of Israel’s peace negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
But then came Israel’s military assault against Hezbollah last month in Lebanon, including the Kana tragedy where at least 91 civilians taking shelter at a U.N. base were killed by Israeli artillery.
Within days, the climate surrounding the government’s relations with the Israeli Arab community changed radically.
Israeli Arab politicians competed with one another in issuing threats to withhold their support for Peres.
The precious Arab votes seemed to be in danger and Labor Party campaign strategists were seriously concerned.
Seeking to woo a majority of the Arab voters, Peres invited each of the four Arab partied competing in the Knesset election to his officer May 10.
Each came with a list of demands – from the release of Palestinian security prisoners to erecting new villages for the Bedouin population in the Negev.
Peres listened and promised to examine the requests, but he refrained from explicitly asking the Arabs to vote for him.
“If you want Bibi to win, that’s your business,” Peres told his Arab visitors, using Netanyahu’s nickname.
Although recent polls show Peres maintaining his narrow margin over Netanyahu in the prime minister race, the same polls also show as many as 16 percent still undecided. The pollsters agree that the bulk of the undecided will eventually support Netanyahu.
That makes the Arab vote that much more crucial for Peres.
After meeting with the prime minister, the Arab politicians promised to re- examine their stance, but also indicated that they would withhold their final decision.
“Let Peres sweat a bit before he gets out support,” said a source in Hadash, the Arab-dominated Communist list.
Instead, Peres dispatched Tourism Minister Uzi Baram, who is heading Labor’s campaign in the Arab community, to meet last Friday with representatives of the Arab parties.
Part of the Arabs’ reluctance to endorse Peres stemmed from the fear that a call to vote for Peres could be interpreted – at least by part of the Arab electorate – as a green light to vote for the Labor Party in the Knesset race.
That, they feared, could steer votes away from the Arab parties.
In the end, two of the parties – the Arab Democratic Party-United Arab List and Hadash – were expected to announce their support for Peres this week.
Their decision coincided with those voicing earlier support for the prime minister.
Ibrahim Nimer Hussein, the mayors in Israel, urged the Arab public to go to the polls and vote for the Arab parties in the Knesset race and Peres for prime minister.
“Despite the Grapes of Wrath,” Hussein said, “we prefer Peres.”
Hussein’s early, unequivocal stand indicated greater sensitivity to the political realities that was exhibited by the leaders of the Arab parties.
The mayor seemed to understand what the Knesset aspirants were afraid to admit – that by and large the Arab population would choose Peres irrespective of the Arab parties’ directives.
As Wadia Abu-Nassar of Tel Aviv University put it: the Israeli Arab population “has already made up its mind.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
