Even Netanyahu’s faithful lackey Ayub Kara, another Arab who stands for election, was shafted to 42nd place, when in the last elections Likud got 35 seats. Of all the Israeli parties, only hawkish Yisrael Beiteinu, led by Avigdor Liberman, placed an Arab candidate in a winnable spot: Hamad Ammar. If the approximately 20% of the citizenry that identify as Palestinian or other Arab have to rely on Ammar to speak for their interests, then good luck to them: in all my research I never found him to express himself on any political issue of substance. But there is the Joint List. It campaigns in Israel, stands for the Israeli parliament, but whereas the Israeli political culture continues to shift to the right, this party goes against the flow.
The groom of Umm al-Fahem
In a modest living room in a private home in Umm al-Fahem, a Palestinian town in the middle part of Israel, close to the West Bank, some thirty women come on 27 February to hear Youssef Jabarin explain the Joint List’s plans. The women look upon him with maternal pride while he lists the specific steps taken to improve the Israeli postal service, which loses 40% of the mail in Palestinian and other Arab locales. And to claim compensation in the state schools budget, which was shown to allocate thousands of shekels less per year for an Arab student than it does for a Jewish Israeli student of similar socioeconomic standing. And to reverse the expropriation of lands in Kufr Manda, and to finally approve an urban master plan for Umm al-Fahem, which also had its agricultural lands expropriated in the 1950s.
The coffee tables are laden with fruit, coffee and biscuits provided by the hosts, Rivka and Sara, who are activists in the Communist Party, which is Jabarin’s faction of the Joint List. Children wander in after school to pass the biscuit trays around, while pocketing some cakes themselves. The older women who are sitting on the more comfortable armchairs at the back shout out their objections and comments – “What about the buses to the clinic! You forgot that it takes us two hours and 70 shekels to go get a blood test” – which Jabarin politely acknowledges.
There is no rattling of sabres against Israel nor emotional outpouring for Palestine. If this candidate poses a threat to Israel’s government, it comes in the form of detailed and logical discussion of all the elements that reduce Palestinians to second class citizens. Their struggle over loss of lands since the Nakba, waged in the details of urban planning, is at the heart of the Palestinian cause. All the streets in Umm al-Fahem are plastered with posters for the Joint List, with Jabarin’s face smiling seriously. There are also posters warning against armed crime, and posters denouncing plans to strip Umm al-Fahem residents of their citizenship, and hand them over to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, euphemistically called “transfer”. Young men hanging out in the local shopping mall’s carpark, under election posters and next to signs with Islamic admonitions to pray and dress modestly, have tattoos of weapons on their forearms. Here are the badlands of low voter turnout, but international events have dealt them an unexpected “trump card”.
Jabarin is introduced to voters at a public meet-and-greet event on 27 February as “the groom of Umm al-Fahem”. What is not mentioned is that the father of the bride might be the officially banned Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, which tacitly boycotts Israeli elections, on the grounds that the whole system of governance is illegitimate. Sara whispers to me: “The people here will vote for Jabarin because he is one of our boys, even if they don’t care about politics so much. Even activists of the Islamic movement vote for him. And this time the stakes are international.” Voter turnout amongst Palestinian and other Arab citizens at the last elections stood at bellow 60%. The latest iteration of “transfer” plans came in Trump’s “Deal of the Century”, which specifically lists Umm Al-Fahem as one of the locations to be moved out of the jurisdiction of Israel. This special attention, and the Joint List’s clear opposition to the deal – the only political party in Israel to state so – is expected to boost voter turnout: an unintended gift from the White House to the party that might be able to block Netanyahu’s government formation.
Proud of Tamra
While I was following another one of the Joint List’s candidates, Aida Touma-Suleiman, on the election trail in Tamra, my car broke down. I entered a pastry shop to ask for help. The young man at the counter, Karim, did not hesitate and summoned his friend Muhannad, who had walked in for his evening chat, and who happened to be a car mechanic. They made phonecall after phonecall to find the part and the service to replace my burnt-out alternator.
After a while, they asked what my business was in Tamra. Muhannad readily contributed to my research: “Any Arab who wants to stand proud has to vote for the Joint List. Everyone I know will vote for them. I want our representatives to go there, to the Knesset I mean, and say No, your racism will not pass. I don’t complain about my life. I earn a good living, but I have to live with racism all the time and this is unbearable.” Karim, who also declared himself a Joint List voter, waved for my attention: “Focus a minute. Do you want a potato börek or a cheese one?” They brought me tea and food.
Print
Nancy Hawker | Radio Free (2020-03-02T11:25:54+00:00) Who will Palestinians vote for in the Israeli elections?. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/03/02/who-will-palestinians-vote-for-in-the-israeli-elections/
Please log in to upload a file.
There are no updates yet.
Click the Upload button above to add an update.