‘democratic Front’ Attracts

The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality is a front for Israel’s Rakah Communist Party. Its list for the June 30 Knesset elections indicates its growing “Arabization.” Four of the first six candidates on the list are Arabs.

The “Front”, which won 80,000 votes in the 1977 elections — most of them Arab votes — holds five seats in the present Knesset. It hopes to increase them to six. But political observers doubt that it will be as successful in the coming election as it was in the past.

Several Zionist parties are competing for the Arab vote, (The “Front” is non-Zionist), among them the Labor Alignment, Shinui and Moshe Dayan’s Telem. The National Religious Party is also interested in the Arab vote and may gain some of such votes inasmuch as its traditional control of the Interior Ministry in coalition governments gives it control over the local authorities’ budgets in the Arab sector.

All of those parties focus their criticism on the Communists. Their most effective argument is that if it is in the Arabs’ interest to topple the Likud regime, the best way to do it is to vote Zionist rather than Communist.

The Communists also face a threat from Arab radical groups which, unlike the “Front”, do not recognize Israel’s right to exist as a separate Jewish entity. They are urging Israeli Arabs to boycott the election. The party recognized that to appeal to Arab voters it had to increase Arab representation. Hassan Bishara, a teacher from the Arab village of Tira, was assigned the sixth place on the “Front’s” Knesset list.

The list is headed by veteran Communist leader Meir Wilner, followed by Toufik Toubi, a veteran Arab Communist. Third on the list is Black Panther Charlie Biton, fourth Mayor Tawfik Zayyod of Nazareth and fifth Mayor Mohammad Zeidan of Kufer Manda village near Nazareth.

The “Front” was formed before the 1977 elections by the Communists, the Black Panthers, a group representing Jewish slum-dwellers mainly of Oriental origin, and the Arab mayors. Others were such splinter groups as the “Israeli Socialist Left,” “Leftist Front,” the “Druze Initiative Committee” and several women’s organizations. The intention was to create a broad base of such disparate groups to allow representation by bodies not identified with communism.

The “Front” is running on the same platform as in 1977 with one variation. It stresses that in the event of a peace agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbors, West Jerusalem would be recognized as the capital of Israel and East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state with free access to the holy places of all faiths. Both sections of the city would cooperate in the provision of municipal services.

Other elements of the platform are: a just peace between Israel and the Arab countries; protection of the rights and interests of laborers; abolition of oppression and discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel; abolition of social discrimination; protection of democratic rights against the dangers of fascism; and protection of women’s rights.