For a decade, the Arab cities of Israel have never seen Mr. Netanyahu so much. The Prime Minister led an aggressive campaign, in the run-up to the legislative elections of March 23, to capture their vote (20% of the population). He held about twenty meetings there, met mayors. He drank coffee in a tent with Bedouin chiefs in the Negev desert and promised massive investments in the fight against crime in the Galilee, the scourge of the region. In passing, he told the police chiefs that their men would do well to shoot to kill some gang leaders.
A demobilized community
His party, the Likud, praises in Arabic on its posters the merits of “Abu Yair”, the father of Yair Netanyahu, an explosive honorary title: the son of the Prime Minister is an incendiary figure, readily racist on Israeli social networks. “Arab opinion is not fooled. It considers, in its overwhelming majority, Mr. Netanyahu as a racist, who has done everything for ten years to delegitimize it. Yet he can hope to win a seat or maybe a seat and a half in Parliament ”, estimates Thabet Abu Rass, director of the Abraham initiatives analysis center: 50,000 votes, against 10,000 in the last ballot.
It would not be a small success in this election where every ballot counts. But Mr. Netanyahu’s real bet lies elsewhere. The leaders of the Arab parties recognize it: their community seems partly demobilized. According to studies by Abraham Initiatives, its turnout could fall by 10% from the last ballot, to 55%, far below the national rate (around 70%). Such an ebb plays in favor of the Prime Minister: it increases the share of the Jewish vote, more and more marked on the right.
It is the fruit of a high level political operation. Mr. Netanyahu was able to push to break the united list presented by the four Arab formations since September 2019, and which has earned them unprecedented power in the Knesset: 15 seats. In the fourth ballot in two years, this rickety team, which allies the communists of the Hadash party with the Islamists of Ra’am, ended up collapsing. The Islamists are now going it alone.
Disruption of the place of homosexuals in society
They broke down in particular after a debate on the place given to homosexuals in Arab society. But it is above all a matter of strategy. Strong in their unity, the Arab parties had recommended in the spring of 2020 the centrist Benny Gantz, to form a government. But Mr. Gantz ended up refusing their support. Spurred on by Mr. Netanyahu, also contested by the right wing of his own formation, Bleu Blanc, General Gantz found it impossible to normalize these parties “Non-Zionists”.
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