|
Israel
Arab Parties
Israel's approximately 781,350 Arabs, constituting about 17.8
percent of the population, articulated their views through elected
officials on the municipal and national levels and through the
Arab departments within governmental ministries and nongovernmental
institutions such as the Histadrut. In the past, most elected
Arab officials traditionally affiliated with the Labor Party and
its predecessors, which expected--erroneously as time has proved--that
Israeli Arabs would serve as a "bridge" in creating peace among
Israeli Jews, the Palestinians, and the Arab world. Beginning
in the mid-1970s and throughout the 1980s, increasing numbers
of Arab voters, especially younger ones, asserted themselves through
organizations calling for greater protection of minority rights
and the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Generally, Israeli
Arabs remained attached to their religious, cultural, and political
values, but their ethnic homogeneity has not necessarily resulted
in political cohesion. Internal fissures among Christians, Sunni
Muslims, and Druzes, Negev beduins and Galilee Arabs, and communist
and noncommunist factions have made it difficult for them to act
as a single pressure group in dealing with Israel's Jewish majority.
In 1988, despite their natural sympathy for the year-long uprising
by their fellow Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
Israeli Arabs continued to be active participants in the Israeli
electoral system. They increased their share in the total 1988
Knesset vote to more than 10 percent of the electorate, and the
voting percentage among those eligible to participate was approximately
74 percent, as compared to 80 percent for Jewish voters. Israeli
Arabs increased their voting support for Arab lists from 50 percent
in 1984 to 60 percent in 1988.
As of 1988, Rakah (New Communist List), a predominantly Arab
communist party, continued to adhere to the official Soviet line,
yet explicitly recognized Israel's right to exist within its pre-1967
borders. Rakah succeeded Poalei Tziyyon, part of which split off
in 1921 and became the Communist Party of Palestine. In 1948 it
became the Communist Party of Israel Miflaga Komunisfit Yisraelit,
known as Maki (see Appendix B), and in 1965 it split into two
factions: Rakah with mainly Arab membership, and Maki, with mainly
Jewish membership. In 1977 Maki and several other groups created
Shelli (acronym for Peace for Israel and Equality for Israel),
which disbanded before the 1984 elections. In the November 1988
elections, Rakah maintained its relatively constant share of 40
percent of the total Arab vote and four Knesset seats. In 1988
the party's secretary general was Meir Viler, a veteran Israeli
communist.
Within the Israeli Arab community, Rakah's strongest challenges
came from two more radical parties, the Palestinian nationalist
Sons of the Village, which had no Knesset seats, and the Progressive
National Movement. The Progressive National Movement, also known
as the Progressive List for Peace, came into being in 1984. Its
platform advocated recognition of the PLO and the establishment
of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In
the November 1988 elections, the party, led by Muhammad Muari,
received about 15 percent of the Arab vote; its Knesset delegation
declined to one from the 1984 level of two.
The Arab Democratic Party, founded in early 1988 by Abdul Wahab
Daroushe, a former Labor Party Knesset member, gained about 12
percent of the total Arab vote and one seat in the November 1988
Knesset elections. In a March 1988 interview, Daroushe acknowledged
that his resignation from the Labor Party resulted from the Palestinian
uprising in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the "diminishing
choices" open to Israeli Arab politicians affiliated with the
government and yet tied to the Arab community by a sense of shared
ethnic identity. Echoing the sentiments of other Israeli Arabs,
Daroushe has stated that "The PLO is the sole legitimate representative
of the Palestinians" living outside Israel's pre-1967 borders.
Data as of December 1988
|
