West Bank Arab leaders are disappointed by the inconclusive results of Israel’s elections. While most of them had taken an aloof attitude, maintaining that there is little difference between Labor and Likud as for as Palestinians are concerned, it was clear today that a Labor victory had been hoped for to ease the tense atmosphere in the territory and perhaps increase chances for a political settlement.
Mayor Elias Freij of Bethlehem, one of the few West Bank leaders who had publicly expressed his hope for a Labor victory before the elections, said today that he was not only disappointed but depressed.
“There is not much hope now for the residents of the occupied territories,” he said. He was seriously disturbed by the election of Rabbi Meir Kahane to the Knesset which he described as “a dangerous and ugly” phenomenon. According to Freij, “Kahane is a racist, calling for the expulsion of Arabs from the land where they have lived for centuries. How could that happen?” he asked.
Freij expressed some satisfaction with the success of the Arab-Jewish Progressive List for Peace, a new faction which won two Knesset seats in its first try for parliament. But Al Quds, the leading Arabic daily in East Jerusalem, observed today that no government that may emerge from the elections would be strong or stable enough to take bold decisions.
The leftist Arabic daily A-Shaab said the elections gave the government a mandate to continue the “policy of repression” in the territories. One of its editors told the Israeli daily Haaretz, “We now fear for the fate of our holy places, especially the Al Aksa mosque and the Tomb of the Patriarchs after the rise of extreme fanatics in Israel, particularly Kahane’s party.”
Bashir Barghuti, leader of the Communist Party on the West Bank, said the election results showed that Israel was suffering a deep ideological, political and economic crisis. It also showed, according to Barghuti that there is hardly any interest among the Israeli public to seek a solution of the Middle East conflict.
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