Joint List grabs 14-15 seats, most for Arab party
The heads of the Joint List spent most of Monday urging Arab citizens to head to the ballot boxes, expressing hope that a large turnout would increase the number of its seats to 15 from 13.
Exit polls gave the party 14-15 seats – the highest number of seats an Arab party ever had in the Knesset.
By Monday afternoon, however, Joint List representatives seemed to be worried that not enough Arabs were heeding their calls. In Nazareth and Shfaram, for example, less than half of eligible voters had cast their ballots four hours before voting centers would close.
In addition, some Joint List members seemed to be concerned about large turnouts in Jewish cities and towns, especially those known as strongholds for the right-wing parties, including Likud.
“Our main goal is to see more Arabs in the Knesset,” said Majed Nashef, a construction worker from Taiba in the Triangle, hometown of MK Ahmad
Tibi. “I’ve seen many people here go to vote, but I’m afraid not enough.”
Nashef and other Arab citizens said they were worried about the “campaign to delegitimize the Arab citizens of
Israel” during the election campaign.
“I believe that because of the campaign of incitement, many Arabs have decided to make a bigger effort to increase the power of the Joint List,” said Eman Abu Hassan, a schoolteacher from the nearby town of Kalansuwa, also in the Triangle. “These elections are very important for the Arabs in wake of attempts by the Israeli establishment and many politicians to delegitimize the Arab community. They want us to stay at home, but we have decided to show them that attempts to marginalize the Arabs are doomed to failure.”
Soon after voting early in the morning, Kalansuwa Mayor Abdel Baset Salameh said the Arabs consider this election as “unusual.” The Arabs, he added, feel they are being targeted and that’s why they need to increase their participation in the election. “We are already suffering from many problems, and this is our chance to bring about change.”
Joint List supporters said they were making a big effort to persuade Arab women and youth to participate in the election, noting that many of them had boycotted the last two elections.
Sheikh Ali Abu Rayya, a mosque imam from Sakhnin, said the Arabs were now facing an opportunity to “defeat the extremist right-wing parties and Netanyahu after they passed racist laws against our people.” Abu Rayya, a Joint List supporter, said he and his friends were seeking to achieve two goals: increasing the number of Arabs in the Knesset and bringing down Netanyahu, as well as undermining the rightwing parties.