Arab Voting Becomes Stick to Beat Israel
December 20, 2012 14:30 by Simon Plosker
Haneen Zoabi
Is it any wonder that Israel is perceived as a racist, apartheid and non-democratic state when articles such as Ben Lynfield’s latest appear in The Scotsman? Under the dubious sounding headline “Democracy fears as Arabs set to boycott Israeli poll,” according to Lynfield:
Most of Israel’s Arab citizens are poised to boycott next month’s parliamentary election, which could fuel tough questions about how democratic and representative the Jewish state is.
The feeling of alienation among the Arab minority was intensified yesterday after the Central Elections Committee – at the impetus of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party – voted to ban the candidacy of legislator Hanin Zoabi from the Arab nationalist Balad party.
In an article that mainly blames Israel for an Arab voting malaise, it is only in the penultimate paragraph that Lynfield concedes that the failure of the Arab parties themselves to unite around common issues is also responsible for the situation. But Lynfield failed to dig very deep at all, leaving out some vital context to the story.
- There are a plethora of special interest and sectoral parties in the Israeli political system. Yet, the radical left Hadash party is a mixed Arab-Jewish one while a significant proportion of the mainstream and Zionist Labor Party’s membership are Israeli Arabs. In addition to Labor, there are Arab MK’s in Kadima, Likud and even Yisrael Beitenu. Lynfield fails to account for the fact that large numbers of Israeli Arab voters do not vote solely for Arab parties.
- Lynfield fails to expand on the disillusionment with the Arab parties, which have often preferred to concentrate on representing Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza ahead of their own constituents within Israel itself. This is partially why no Israeli coalition in history has felt comfortable with giving these Arab parties a seat in government (although Israeli Arabs have held and continue to hold high positions in the political, legal and diplomatic fields).
- Regarding the banning of Hanin Zoabi, Lynfield fails to mention that, based on previous form, Israel’s supreme court will most likely reinstate Zoabi. The Central Elections Committee also voted down proposals to ban some Arab parties from running.
Overall, however, Lynfield paints a low Arab turnout in an election as a threat to Israeli democracy. The decision to boycott a free and fair election is ultimately a political decision taken by those Arabs who prefer to stay at home rather than exercise their rights at the ballot box. Indeed, in discussion with an Arab colleague recently, we remarked on the potential voting power of Israeli Arabs who make up some 20 percent of the country’s citizens – an enormously influential voting bloc if those Arabs decided to exercise that power.
While we have heard of neighboring states where an opposition or minority boycotts an election because it is neither free nor fair, this is not the case in Israel where minority rights are protected under the law. That Israeli Arabs are not a dominant force in determining Israeli government policies is down to one overriding factor – democracy itself.
Irish Times joins in
The Irish Times also reports on the barring of Haneen Zoabi from running for Knesset, failing to mention the likelihood that Zoabi will be reinstated by the Israeli Supreme Court.
Please send your considered comments to The Scotsman - lettersts@scotsman.com and the Irish Times - lettersed@irishtimes.com
Ben
5:51 pm
Dec 20, 2012
Read the article and found it a great piece of narrative fiction, which would be fine if it wasn’t supposed to be journalistic non-fiction. This is not a huge surprise, though, considering the preconceived notions of the guy who wrote it (B. Lynfield), so the actual surprise was how thin and ultimately stupid his argument is. A democracy is not keyed on how many fifth columnists sit at home or how many people unfit to represent a state they want destroyed are refused electoral credentials. Israeli Arabs don’t mostly refer to themselves as Palestinians because they want to reside in Ramallah, after all. Their failures are their own, it’d be nice if they someday dealt with that.
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Ira
10:28 pm
Dec 20, 2012
What a strange defense of Israeli democracy. You fail to mention that Zouabi is a traitor who would be hung for treason in almost any other country, certainly any other Arab one.
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Shimona from the Palace
11:34 pm
Dec 20, 2012
True democracy means the right to vote or not, according to the citizen’s own wish. How in the world a symbol of true democracy got twisted into a sign of lack of democracy is completely unfathomable – until you remember that the world has different rules when it comes to the Jewish state. For example, that the rabid anti-Israel blogger Richard Silverstein, in his misnamed “Tikun Olam” blog, claims that because no Arab party is ever invited to join an Israeli government coalition, this means that the Israeli Arabs (whom he insists on calling Israeli Palestinians) are automatically disenfranchised – ignoring the fact that many of them vote for “mainstream” parties, including the Likud.
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11:13 am
Dec 21, 2012
[...] As my colleague, Simon Plosker, blogged this afternoon, Arab Voting Becomes a Stick to Beat Israel. [...]
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Eliyahu
4:50 pm
Dec 24, 2012
I agree with Ira. I think that you took the wrong approach to dealing with Hanin Zu`abi. She is indeed a traitor to Israel and is therefore not fit to sit in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. She happily took part in the terrorist convoy to Gaza sponsored by the Islamist govt of Turkey, by Erdogan, and by Obama’s “counter-terrorism” czar, I think his name is Brennan. Some of Zu`abi’s fellow passengers on the Mavi Marmara said the Judeophobic ditty on board that goes like this:
Khaybar Khaybar, ya Yahud
Jaysh Muhammad sa ya`ud.
[remember] Khaybar Khaybar, O Jews
Muhammad’s Army is coming back.
This is the Jewish-populated Khaybar oasis in Arabia that Muhammad’s army conquered.
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10:07 am
Dec 31, 2012
[...] Memo to The Scotsman and its alarmist fears for Israeli Arab voting rights: Israel Arab MK Haneen Zoabi will run for Knesset in January [...]
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6:20 am
Apr 10, 2013
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