Yesterday, the Israeli prime minister, who hopes for another victory in the March 2021 elections, made a campaign stop in an unexpected place: the Arab-majority city of Nazareth. The visit was part of a major effort to get a slice of the Arab vote, which, according to a recent poll, may garner Likud some 70,000 votes in the next election. Haviv Rettig Gur explains:
[The polling data] seem to fit the new argument being made by some Arab politicians that parts of the Arab Israeli community are growing weary of seeing their politics consumed by the Palestinian cause, and are seeking a seat at Israel’s political table. They yearn for the kind of influence that can only be obtained by wheeling and dealing with those in power. If they seek to drive government funds to their communities, to rebuild dilapidated infrastructure, to tackle soaring crime rates, and to invest in schools and civil society, it’s time to put the Arab vote—so the argument goes—back in play. That’s true of both votes at the ballot box and votes of Arab politicians in parliament.
And as Netanyahu noted repeatedly over the past week, it doesn’t hurt that he helped deliver normalization deals that opened up new parts of the Arab world to Arab Israelis. An Israeli passport can now carry an Israeli tourist or entrepreneur to the Persian Gulf, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, and soon even Sudan. No wonder that Maklada also found that, just like the Jews, Arabs tell pollsters that Netanyahu is the “most qualified” politician to serve as prime minister, by a wide margin.
The shift in Arab political discourse is real, but it still represents only a minority of the Arab vote. . . . Netanyahu’s new embrace of the Arab vote is a calculated attempt to accelerate that [shift]. It is already showing early signs of success.
Read more on Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-faces-protests-in-nazareth-as-he-continues-effort-to-court-arab-voters/