Nazareth voters cheer Arab alliance gains

NAZARETH, Israel — Choruses of beeping horns echoed through this Arab city in northern Israel as word spread that an alliance of Arab parties had received 13 seats in the next Parliament, making it the thirdlargest bloc. Long-divided Arab parties forming a coalition was unprecedented; so was the size of their new bloc, offering a good reason for Nazareth and other Arab towns to rejoice.

“This is a great achievement,” said Ahmad Tibi, a veteran Arab politician who was elected to Parliament on Tuesday, speaking at the alliance’s headquarters in Nazareth. Men and women cheered and waved flags bearing the alliance’s slogan, “The Will of the People.”

“We will have before us great challenges. We will fight racism, we will fight fascism, we will defend our rights, regardless of the gov- ernment,” he said. “Today we are stronger.”

Yet as the euphoria fades, it remains far from clear what influence the Arab cohort, which calls itself the Joint List, will actually have.

The Likud Party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defeated the center-left Zionist Union, led by Isaac Herzog.

In any event, Arab parties have never joined governing coalitions, not wanting to be seen as complicit in Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Moreover, Zionist parties do not invite them, explained Jafar Farah, the director of the Mossawa Center, an Arab advocacy group. Yet the head of the Joint List, Ayman Odeh, sees an achievement in getting this far in Israeli politics.

“There is no Arab in this country who imagined that we would be the third force,” said Odeh, who only weeks ago, was a little-known mu- nicipal counselor from Haifa, a mixed Arab-Jewish city in northern Israel. Odeh suggested that Herzog could join Netanyahu in a broad coalition — so far, an unlikely scenario. If that happens, Odeh said “we will enter from the back door, and lead the opposition,” he said.

At the very least, the large turnout gave Arabs more weight to promote their community, said the Mossawa Center director, Farah.

“The discourse of separation, the discourse of racism, the discourse of incitement, that have been promoted by Bibi Netanyahu and Lieberman is the discourse that we are challenging,” he said, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname and to Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister.

Arabs in Israel number some 1.7 million, forming one-fifth of the country’s population. Though most are Israeli citizens, they tend to be poorer, less educated, and less likely to be employed than their Jewish counterparts. Israeli Arabs say they have felt more marginalized during the years when the government in Jerusalem has been dominated by Netanyahu and Likud.

For some, it culminated on Tuesday when Netanyahu implored his party’s faithful to turn out, warning that Arab voters could influence the outcome of the elections. Later, however, he said in Hebrew on Facebook that “there is nothing wrong with citizens voting, Jewish or Arab, as they wish.”

Few Israeli Arabs appeared mollified. Both Sami Issa and his son Bassel said they used to vote for Israeli Jewish parties, as did many Arabs in Israel. But separately, they both said that a sense of growing discrimination had pushed them to reconsider.

“I’m an Arab!” said Bassel Issa, 27, a baker. “I vote for Arabs.”