HAIFA: Israel'sArab parties are set to be the largest non-ruling bloc in parliament - andcould even lead the opposition - if a national unity government emerges fromTuesday's election. A surge in turnout gave the Arab-dominated Joint List 13 ofthe Knesset's 120 seats, making it the third-largest grouping behind PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, with 31 seats, and BennyGantz's centrist Blue and White, with 33.
That would makethe Joint List the largest opposition grouping in parliament if a unitygovernment takes shape, a realistic possibility even though Gantz rebuffedNetanyahu's initial invitation. No party drawn from the 21 percent Arabminority has ever been part of an Israeli government. But if Joint List headAyman Odeh, 44, becomes opposition leader, he would receive monthly briefingsfrom the Mossad intelligence agency and meet visiting heads of state, amongother perks.
This wouldprovide an outlet to voice Arab complaints of discrimination against them andgive a bigger platform to Arab parties that differ with those drawn from thecountry's Jewish majority on many political debates. "It is an interestingposition, never before held by someone from the Arab population. It has a lotof influence," Odeh told reporters outside his home in Haifa, a mixed Araband Jewish city in northern Israel.
But although theJoint List will be the single largest group, other opposition parties combinedwould have enough seats to block his appointment through an absolute majorityvote, analysts said. "There's no way the other parties will agree to haveAyman Odeh as head of the opposition, and grant our community recognition andlegitimacy," said Aida Touma-Sliman, an Arab lawmaker from Odeh's Hadashfaction. Arab lawmakers often call for an end to Israel's occupation of theWest Bank and Gaza, a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital andthe dismantling of Israel's settlements in the West Bank.
'Symbolic win'
The Arabcommunity in Israel is mainly descendants of the Palestinians who remained inIsrael after its creation in 1948, and some in the younger generation openlyidentify as Palestinian. They make up 1.9 million of Israel's 9 millionpopulation, and often complain of discrimination in health, education andhousing, living in cities such as Nazareth and Acre in the north and Bedouintowns in the southern Negev desert.
The MossawaCenter rights group says Israel's state budget often favours Jews, allocatingmore funds to Jewish localities and schools than to Arab ones. Some 47% of Arabcitizens live in poverty, far above a national average of 18%, it says.However, Netanyahu's Likud party counters that its 15 billion shekel ($4.19 billion)investment plan for the Arab sector during the last parliament was "thelargest such commitment in Israel's history", according to Eli Hazan,Likud's foreign affairs director.
In Tuesday'selection, Odeh and his group of four Arab parties ran a united front and Arabturnout increased sharply. That helped them regain seats lost in April whenthey were divided and turnout plummeted. The Joint List held up its strongershowing on Tuesday's rerun as a victory over what it described as an "unprecedentedcampaign of incitement against the Arab public" by Netanyahu andright-wing parties. Netanyahu made allegations of voter fraud in Arabcommunities an issue in his election campaign, and sought to deploy cameras tothe country's polling centers in what Arab leaders described an attempt toscare off voters. Israel's top court refused to allow cameras.
Eid Jbaili, a55-year-old gym teacher from Haifa, said he boycotted the April election butvoted on Tuesday "because my community's leaders showed they could exudeunity in the face of adversity". But Jbaili was unsure an Arab oppositionleader would be able to provide anything beyond a "small symbolicwin" for his community. "We still won't be decision-makers in thiscountry," he said.- Reuters