When will Bibi atone for his insult to Arab voters?


March 26, 2015
Sarah Benton

Articles from Haaretz and Al Monitor


An Arab Israeli at a voting booth in a polling station in the northern town of Umm el-Fahm, March 17, 2015. Photo by Ammar Awad / Reuters

Arab mayors say they refused Netanyahu meeting, add ‘apology is not enough’

The Committee of Heads of Arab Local Authorities criticize the prime minister over his Election Day remark, in which he warned his rule was in danger because ‘Arabs are voting in droves.’

By Jack Khoury, Haaretz
March 25, 2015

Arab mayors on Wednesday said they rejected last week an overture made by mediatory forces to hold a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A statement published by the Committee of Heads of Arab Local Authorities said that they had refused to meet Netanyahu and that they reject his remark on Election Day, in which the prime minister urged voters to go to the polls because “the Arabs are voting in droves.”

The committee’s statement said that the Arab citizens who took part in a meeting with Netanyahu earlier this week, in which Netanyahu apologized, “do not represent Israeli Arabs and their official institutions.”

According to sources in the committee, the day after the elections they were approached by Haim Bibas, the chairman of the Union of Local Authorities who is considered close to Netanyahu, who offered to set up a meeting between Netanyahu and all of Israel’s heads of Arab local authorities. The committee rejected the offer, they said, because it was not clear what the purpose of the meeting was.

“There is no problem sitting with the prime minister and other cabinet members in an official meeting, but only after the government is formed,” they said.

The statement, signed by 63 Arab heads of local authorities, said that the committee does not rule out a meeting between panel members and Netanyahu after the formation of a government, but noted that the Arab population in Israel does not accept the prime minister’s apology. It stressed that words were not enough and that they expect a change in policy.

On Election Day, Netanyahu urged his supported to go and vote, saying that his rule was in danger because “the Arab are voting in droves.” His comments drew harsh criticism in Israel and abroad.


Israel Arabs will look to Bibi’s actions, not words

Arab Israelis wait for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prove his regret over his insulting statement on Election Day, and to allocate the needed resources to improve their situation.

By Shlomi Eldar, trans. Simon Pompan, Al Monitor / Israel Pulse
March 25, 2015

The recent election campaign left pollsters and many of the country’s political commentators surprised and confused. Despite the forecasts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enjoyed a landslide March 17 even in sectors where pollsters and commentators had assumed were “disappointed” with the Likud Party and wanted to punish him. After final results came in, the pollsters who failed to predict the voting trends talked about “undercurrents.” But what seems most surprising is the fact that the Likud Party and Netanyahu received many votes from the Arab sector, too. While Arab Israelis did not vote in great numbers for the Likud, casting their ballots for the Joint List by a large margin, analysis of the data suggests there was almost not a single Arab community where the Likud got zero votes. In many communities, and not just the Druze communities, known to be loyal to the party in power, the percentage of those who voted for the Likud ranged from 3% to 5% of the vote (Muslims, Druze, Bedouins, Christians and Circassians.)

On March 23, Netanyahu invited to his residence in Jerusalem more than 100 Arab council heads as well as activists from the Arab sector to mend fences and explain himself. What the media was mostly focused on was Netanyahu’s first public apology for what he had said at noontime on Election Day, urging Likud supporters to save his candidacy because Arabs were voting “in droves.” The meeting at the prime minister’s residence was also attended by Likud activists in charge of canvassing votes in the Arab sector.

One of the prominent participants at this meeting was Hussein al-Heib, the council head of Tuba-Zangariyye, a Bedouin community of 6,000 in the north of Israel. More than 76% of the voters in his community cast their vote for the Joint List, yet the Likud garnered 62 votes or 3.5% of the voters. Left-wing Meretz only received 17 more votes than the Likud. Incidentally, one other interesting figure is that the two ultra-Orthodox Jewish slates, Shas and Yahadut HaTorah, each got 1% in Tuba-Zangariyye.

“Arab Israelis make up 20% of Israel’s population and they don’t all vote for the Arab parties,” says al-Heib. “Many people follow their personal interests and are not just ideologically motivated. People in the Arab communities that voted for the Zionist parties have relatives or activists who worked to rally voters for them. Here at Tuba, the majority voted for the Joint List, but they also voted for other parties, including not an insignificant number for Likud.”


A display of equality: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an Arab representative, March 23, 2015. Photo by New Media Likud

I asked al-Heib whether Likud activists in the Arab sector did not feel awkward coming to Netanyahu’s residence after his Election Day statement, which was construed as aimed against Arab Israelis.

Those who were invited showed up,” he said. [Among them were] the council heads of Beit Jann, Kafr Kanna, Sajur, Kafr Bara, a representative of the Christians, clergy, public officials and Bedouin sheiks from the Negev. Not everybody rooted for the meeting. Arab politicians lambasted us and Netanyahu for it, saying the prime minister had to apologize to them and not to the public officials who were invited to his residence. I told them that I wasn’t the one who organized the meeting. They, as elected public officials, can initiate such a meeting.

Now it all depends on Netanyahu whether he wants to leave his mark. If he doesn’t — then no one will remember him. We are aware that his next government will be more right-wing oriented. We hope that in the upcoming term — his fourth — he’ll take action to promote all sectors. What we need is a democratic state for all its citizens. There are Arab citizens who were born here. And even though they didn’t serve in the military, they nevertheless built homes and paved roads, and they deserve equality. We have no other country. Al-Heib

I asked al-Heib how he accounted for the fact that “personal interests,” as he calls it, prompted the Arab population to vote for the Likud, thereby assisting the party to get another seat in the Knesset.

“The Likud,” he replied, “got a few thousand votes, mainly from people who have friends in the party. There were Knesset members like [former Shin Bet director] Avi Dichter who came here to canvass and solicit votes for the Likud. I personally know Netanyahu. During his first term, I sent him an invitation and he came to visit me at my home. Together with my wife and elected Arab officials, I hosted him. There were no elections at the time. It wasn’t a political thing. I sent him an invitation and said: ‘We want equality and budgets,’ and he showed up.”


In towns where both Arabs and Jews live, the housing for Arabs is usually of a poorer standard – which makes them easier to demolish when the state wants the land, as here in Jaffa.

But in the Arab sector, both sentiments and numbers point to the fact that the much awaited equality has not been established yet, not even on the eve of the elections. The Arab localities suffer from a housing crisis, from lack of urban planning, of infrastructure and much more.

Al-Heib agrees.

I can tell you that most of the Arabs who voted for the Joint List would like it to co-operate with the government, with the Likud, to better the infrastructures and bring them to the same level as the Jewish ones, and to get a set budget for improvements. Let me give the example of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin who helped Arab Israelis. I can tell you that 60% of the people here voted for him at the time. Even Shas got quite a few votes from us when Aryeh Deri, as minister of the interior, acted for equality between Jews and Arabs. And hence, that’s the conclusion. The vote of Arab Israelis is not only ideologically motivated. It is also motivated by interests, which is what happened now with the Likud. Now the ball is Netanyahu’s court. It all rides on him and the government he will form.

Many of the mayors in the local Arab councils believe that it was the criticism levelled at Netanyahu for his statement on Election Day that could result in a positive movement in terms of budgeting for the Arab local councils and closing the gap and ending disenfranchisement. The people who attended the meeting believe that Netanyahu will try to prove to Arab Israelis, indeed to the world, that he truly regrets what he said and that he will be everybody’s prime minister.

The committee of the heads of Arab localities published an announcement on March 25, emphasizing that the participants of the March 23 reconciliation meeting with Netanyahu do not represent them or the entire Arab Israeli sector.

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