Apathy fear of Israeli Arab voters

By Martin Patience
BBC News ebsite, in Jerusalem

There are many factors that might put off Israeli Arab electors

The TV campaign advertisement for the National Democratic Assembly, an Arab party contesting the Israeli elections, shows a camel wandering through the desert.

"They think I'm a donkey," the camel says aloud. "But I'm a camel."

The implicit message is that Israeli Arab citizens are being taken for fools if they vote for Zionist parties in Tuesday's Israeli elections.

It is part of a concerted push by the four main Arab parties to get the vote out among their communities.

Arab Israeli politicians fear voter frustration, a possible Islamic boycott and competition from Zionist parties could lead to a drop in the number of Arab representatives in the Knesset.

Fearful minority

The decision to increase the threshold for Knesset membership from 1.5% to 2% of the national vote deepens the sense of worry among Arab politicians who rely on small percentages.

"I don't recall any previous election campaign in which Arab parties invested this much energy in battling the Zionist parties and to convincing voters to get to the ballot box," says Elie Rekhess, a Middle Eastern and African studies research fellow at Tel Aviv university.

If Arab representation is missing it would be bad for both the Arabs and the Jews in Israel Elie Rekhess

The majority of Israel's 1m Arab citizens, about a fifth of the country's population, originate from Palestinian families who remained after the establishment of Israel in 1948.

While entitled to vote in the Israeli elections, many feel like second-class citizens, facing discrimination in the health, education and the labour market.

Their sense of insecurity is not helped by the fact that some mainstream Zionist parties - such as Yisrael Beiteinu - openly advocate the "transfer" of Arab citizens out of Israel.

Clash of egos

The last Israel parliament saw the Arab parties holding eight seats, only about a third of their possible representation according to Israel's demographics.

Labour has posters in Arabic - without the Israeli flag

In the run-up to elections, the four main parties discussed whether to form a unified Arab list, something polls suggested would have overwhelming support among the community.

But the idea was dropped, in what analyst said was more a clash of egos than ideologies.

In the past many Arab voters have turned to the Israeli Labour party . The party has three Arabs on its list hoping to woo Arab voters in this election.

Posters in Arabic showing the party leader Amir Peretz have been displayed in areas with large Arab populations.

Unlike their Hebrew counterparts, the specially-produced Arabic posters show Mr Peretz without the Israeli flag draped behind him.

Political juggernaut

Many Arabs vote Labour because they feel they have no chance of influencing political power otherwise. That is the view of Issam Makhoul, an MP for Hadash, a party representing Arab and Jewish leftists.

"The ruling parties create disasters for the Arab communities in Israel and then try and blame the Arab parties," he says.

In this election, most eyes are on the political juggernaut of Kadima and the question: how many seats will it win?

But for analysts like Elie Rekhess, the most important issue at stake is the Arab vote.

"I hope and pray that Arabs will turn out at the election," he says. "If Arab representation is missing it would be bad for both the Arabs and the Jews in Israel."