Arab turnout in Israel election rises despite racist campaigns

It’s become a tired trope of Benjamin Netanyahu’s election campaigns: as the country draws closer to election day the leader ramps up his racist scaremongering suggesting Israel’s Arab minority are preparing to vote en masse.

Infamously in 2015 he said Arabs were “voting in droves”. This year the prime minister almost lost his voice on Tuesday as he shouted through a megaphone to his base. His political rivals in the Arab parties, he screamed, would gather enough parliamentary seats to topple him. “So go and vote!”

A visibly frenzied Netanyahu may have been right this time. Partial results suggested Tuesday’s election saw turnout from Palestinian citizens of Israel, who account for up to a fifth of the population, rise to 61% of eligible voters, up 12 points since the previous vote.

Early predictions suggest that parties representing Israeli Arabs could become the third most powerful faction in the Knesset after the two main parties and even the deciding factor in who becomes prime minister. In some possible scenarios, the parties could head the opposition, a first for Israel.

“It backfired,” said Abed Abu Shhadeh, 31, a Arab city counsellor in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Jaffa, southern Tel Aviv, mentioning the prime minister’s race baiting. “Netanyahu’s political discourse gave Arabs a sense of importance – that their vote does matter.”

Ayman Odeh, leader of the main Arab faction in parliament, said results showed there was “a heavy price to pay for incitement”, adding that the party intended to “send that inciter Netanyahu home”.

After a bad showing in April, Arab parties reunited into a single alliance this election in an attempt to raise their joint influence, a strategy that also appeared to have worked. Odeh was due on Wednesday evening to meet the retired general Benny Gantz, head of the main opposition party, Blue and White.

A deal between Arab parties and Gantz – who led the bloody 2014 war in Gaza and has said he wants to keep control over significant Palestinian territory – may have previously appeared unthinkable. But in one potential scenario Arab politicians could endorse Gantz as prime minister but not join his government. All to oust Netanyahu.

Palestinian citizens of Israel come from families who remained on their land during the wars surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948, while several hundred thousand others were expelled or fled.

Arab Israelis are largely supportive of Palestinian efforts towards statehood, and many have boycotted Israeli elections on principle, reducing their political influence.

Israeli rightwing parties have also been accused of attempting to dampen the Arab vote. This year, Netanyahu’s Likud party placed cameras outside polling booths in Arab constituencies, which was interpreted as an intimidation tactic. Arabs in Israel face discrimination and many would not want their political allegiances known.

But this election, demonising and intimidating the minority, might have also angered Jewish Israelis. Outside a polling booth in West Jerusalem on Tuesday a Jewish man, who asked to remain anonymous, said he had voted for Arab parties in protest. It was less about their policies, he said. His vote was for one reason: “I’m against racism.”