Another election race has come and gone and again we see that one of the main runners, the Arab public, is not being counted. In 2015, it happened when Arab Israelis flocked to vote for the Joint Arab List, which became the country's third-largest party. This time, it happened due to indifference and low voter turnout, which resulted in fewer Arab members of Knesset and the Balad party fighting for its life to remain above the electoral threshold. Out of some 928,000 eligible voters in the Arab sector, only one-third voted for Arab parties. The Arab public expressed a lack of faith in its representatives and told them: You've let us down, neglected us; we aren't in your pocket anymore.
Ayman Odeh and Ahmad Tibi have realized the error of their ways. They grasped the gravity of the situation on Election Day, when they sent activists door to door to convince people to go out and vote. What a shame they couldn't understand that persuading people to vote for them requires four years of work and accomplishments, not four hours of desperately knocking on doors. What didn't they do to scrounge up a few more votes; they even used mosque loudspeakers and fear-mongering texts to mobilize voters.
Perhaps this helped minimize the damage somewhat, but it didn't change the overall picture: Among the Arab public, there is great despair and revulsion for the Arab parties. The majority of Israel's Arab citizens who chose to stay home don't regret the Joint Arab List's disintegration and weren't alarmed over the reports of video cameras at the voting stations. They didn't vote, because for the past four years, while their sector was contending with its difficult socio-economic situation – and with a series of internal social problems, such as violence and crime, illegal firearms, shoddy infrastructure and poor education – our representatives were busy with external issues and neglected us. Even the 10 mandates they did win were thanks to traditional voting patterns based on tribalism, and to the aforementioned effect of fear-mongering the Arab parties incessantly pump down our throats every election. Incidentally, the Likud's "Bibi or Tibi" campaign helped Tibi just as much as Netanyahu.
Another reason for the indifference and low turnout in the Arab sector is that no other party answered the bell to create a worthwhile alternative for us; neither in rhetoric nor in representation. As for actions – we'll just wait and see. In the next election, however, every party should consider the great potential in the Arab public, where voters are searching for a new political home, yearn for hope and aspire to a new political reality where they can feel like an inseparable part of Israeli society.
In an interview on the morning the day after the election, Ouda said he and his colleagues would examine themselves to understand what led to the low voter turnout in the Arab sector. But the answer is really very simple, Ayman: When the Arab parties don't care about reducing the socio-economic gaps in Arab society, Arab society will take care of reducing your mandates.
