Likud president Benjamin Netanyahu launched a new campaign this month aimed at attracting Arab Israeli voters ahead of November’s national vote, becoming one of very few party leaders to do so so far this election cycle.
But after similar effort in the last election gave limited resultsNetanyahu reportedly believes that his ability to garner support from Arab supporters is limited. As a result, the Likud leader is hoping that if he fails to attract Arab voters once again, he will at least be able to convince them that there is no difference between him and the other candidates for prime minister. – Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid and national unity leader Benny Gantz – according to a non-source Channel 12 report on Friday.
The network cited a recent poll by the Statenet polling firm, which specializes in surveying Israel’s Arab minorities, which indicated that Netanyahu has his work cut out for him with Arab voters. While majority-Arab parties have long campaigned on anti-Netanyahu sentiment, the Statenet poll found that 75% of Arab Israelis are not concerned with his possible return to power.
With this in mind, the former prime minister is hoping that Arab voters will choose to stay at home on election day on November 1, which many analysts believe may help boost Netanyahu and his rigid, religious bloc. Will help, Channel 12 said.
As part of the new campaign, Netanyahu has launched Arabic-language accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, including translated campaign videos over the past week. He has also released a campaign ad specifically targeting Arab voters.
“This is an opportunity for all of us to usher in a new era. A new era in relations between Jews and Arabs and the Arab citizens of Israel,” he can be heard saying in the ad.
Only Likud could establish a stable government for four prosperous years. pic.twitter.com/ZYhK5bagpH
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu_ar) 4 September 2022
Netanyahu made a similar effort in the 2021 election, centered around a nickname derived from his Arab supporters, “Abu Yar”.
He zipped between Arab cities, touted his government’s coronavirus vaccination campaign, pushed a plan to tackle crime in Arab cities and towns, and saw the opportunity for a “new era” for Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. Told.
The effort garnered some rewards, with support for Netanyahu’s Likud multiplying and vote numbers often four, five and even eight times higher in Arab communities than in the March 2020 election.
But it was also far less in actual numbers – a result of low turnout among the Arab population and the fact that support for Likud, even manifold, remains limited in these communities.
Netanyahu claimed on the campaign that Arab voters could win him 2-3 Knesset seats, but the Arab votes he received on the previous election day were not equal to one seat.
Turnout in the entire Arab community was historically low – only 44.6%. According to a survey published last month by the Cannes public broadcaster, the figure is expected to drop even further in November.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Bedouin City of Relief on March 7, 2021. (courtesy)
An opinion poll published last week by the Cannes public broadcaster Lowest turnout ever The November 1 national election among Arab Israelis potentially reduced Arab representation in the Knesset and handed Netanyahu a parliamentary majority.
The survey – conducted by Yousef Maqladeh’s Statenet firm in conjunction with the Arabic-language public network Makan 33 – predicted that the Arab turnout in the upcoming vote would be 39 percent, the lowest in the country’s history.
The survey, however, included answers from only 200 Arab-Israeli respondents, and neither Kan nor Makan provided a margin of error for the survey.
Arab turnout peaked at 64.8%, before a poor showing in 2021, which gave 15 seats to the majority-Arab Joint List in the 120-member Knesset in 2020.
At that time, the Joint List was made up of all four major majority-Arab parties. After that election, the Islamist Ram faction broke away from the merger and began to run on its own. However it managed to cross the electoral threshold and make it to the next Knesset, becoming the first independent Arab party to join a government coalition, resulting in a voter turnout. Surveys indicate that continued division of Arab parties will lead to similar results in the future.
Netanyahu’s latest gesture appears to contradict the campaign style that several Likud lawmakers told The Times of Israel they plan to run this time.
A campaign poster for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, chairman of the Likud party, is pictured in the Bedouin town of Tarabin, near the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, ahead of the legislative election on March 7, 2021. (Hazem Badr/AFP)
“Arabs are taking over the country. We see it every day. They abuse the Jews. They do what they want. They go out for violent demonstrations which sometimes lead to lynchings. They trample Israel’s flags,” MK Mickey Zohar charged up in May. “This will be the hottest topic in the election and the public will be with us.”
This would not be the first time Likud has used anti-Arab sentiment to woo votes. On election day in 2015, Netanyahu infamously said, “The rule of authority is in danger. Arab voters are coming to the ballot boxes in large numbers.
Netanyahu frequently attacked the government for including Ram, despite widely negotiating with its leader Mansoor Abbas to enter a possible Likud-led coalition after the April 2020 election.
MK Ayman Odeh (left), the head of the Joint List, and MK Ahmed Tibi attend a faction meeting in the Knesset in Jerusalem on March 7, 2022. (Yontan Sindel / Flash 90)
Before the September 2019 election, Netanyahu launched an exhaustive campaign based on unsubstantiated claim That Arab Israelis were harvesting ballots to steal the election from him. He called for cameras to be installed in Arab polling stations, which critics called voter intimidation.
Netanyahu’s message in his latest campaign is completely different.
In Likud, an Arabic-translated ad released earlier this week, Netanyahu can be heard saying, “The peace agreements I have signed with the Arab countries will continue to bring in more investment and cooperation that will help Jews and Arabs live with each other.” bring it closer.” , “If Jews and Arabs can dance together in the streets of Dubai, they can dance together here as well as in the State of Israel.”
“I know there is much to be done. I am personally committed to ensuring the personal safety of each one of you,” says Netanyahu, acknowledging the long-unsolved problem of crime in Arab communities , a major issue.
Israel’s Arab community is in the grip of a relentless crime wave that has swept across Arab-majority and mixed Jewish-Arab cities and towns over the past few years.
Last week, a mother and one of her 14-year-old twin daughters were Shot dead Another surviving teenager was injured and faced threats to her life in the central city of Lod.
Journalist Nadal Ighbaria was there days after the assassination killed In the northern Arab city of Umm al-Fahm.
At least 75 Arabs have been killed in violent crimes in Israel so far this year, 71 of them nationals, according to the Abraham Initiatives, a group campaigning against violence in the Arab community.
Nine women were among the victims this year and 64 were killed in gunfire.