De Israelische Terreur 743

'Disillusioned Arabs to snub election

Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent
The National
February 09. 2009

NAZARETH, ISRAEL // Elias Khoury, a 33-year-old architect from the village of Ibilin in Galilee, has been a lifelong supporter of the Communist Democratic Front, the only joint Arab-Jewish party represented in the Israeli parliament. No longer.

Tomorrow, when Israelis head to the polls to elect their next government, Mr Khoury – one of the country’s 1.2 million Arab citizens – will be staying home rather than casting a vote.

“I’ve given up on the talk of coexistence,” he said. “Now it’s clear it is just empty rhetoric. After the attack on Gaza, I am sure there will never be two states here. It’s going to be either a Jewish state with no Arabs, or an Arab state with no Jews. Voting any Arab party into the parliament is a waste of time.”

His ominous vision of the future reflects disillusionment with the Israeli political system, he said, rather than extremism. “We are living in an extreme situation imposed on us by Israel.”

Mr Khoury will be joined by a substantial number of others in his boycott. According to recent surveys, slightly less than half the Arab electorate is expected to vote this week, a far cry from the 77 per cent who turned out in 1996, when the Oslo process still promised a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The principal victims of a low Arab turnout will be the Democratic Front and two exclusively Arab parties, which currently have 10 legislators between them in the 120-member parliament.

The causes of the alienation felt by most Arab citizens – who comprise one fifth of the country’s population – are not difficult to divine. They are still smarting from the rock-solid Jewish consensus behind the recent Gaza offensive as well as accusations of treason they faced as a community for opposing the military operation.

Those feelings have been compounded by the overnight transformation of Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of a party even Israeli commentators describe as fascistic, into a figure of national authority.

Mr Lieberman’s party, Yisrael Beiteinu, is expected to come third in the election, making him pivotal in deciding whether the coalition government will be led by the Kadima or Likud parties. He is also certain to garner a high-profile post in the cabinet under either party.

His popular campaign slogan – “No loyalty, no citizenship” – refers to a plan to revoke the citizenship of Arabs who fail to pledge an oath of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state. Many of his supporters, meanwhile, prefer chants of “Death to the Arabs”.

Ahmad Saadi, a political scientist at Ben Gurion University in the Negev town of Beersheva, said he expected a widespread boycott, adding that Arab turnout in elections had been steadily declining for the past decade.

“Since the end of the Oslo accord, the idea of peace, which has always been at the forefront of the Arab parties’ platforms, has sounded increasingly hollow,” he said. “Fewer Arab citizens believe there will ever be a Palestinian state. Disillusionment has set in.”'

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