CNN - Palestinian vote could sway Israeli election

Palestinian vote could sway Israeli election

April 9, 1996
Web posted at: 12:10 a.m. EDT (0410 GMT)

From Correspondent Jerrold Kessel

TAIBE, Israel (CNN) -- An important political strategy is being prepared in coffee houses in Arab communities around Israel -- with very high stakes.

Palestinians, Israeli by citizenship, will have a say in electing the next prime minister of Israel. (187K AIFF sound or 187K WAV sound)

They are almost a million strong -- 14 percent of the electorate and the swing vote in next month's election, which will determine whether Prime Minister Shimon Peres of the Labor Party remains in office.

Peres is architect of Israel's efforts to build peace with Palestinians and the Arab world. Peres has charged that a victory of the conservative Likud Party, whose leader Benjamin Netanyahu is opposing him, would end the peace process.

The election may indeed be decided in Israeli-Arab villages. Many of these villages and towns, like Taibe, lie next to the West Bank, possibly a future Palestinian state. A short distance from Taibe lies the heart of Israel. The geography symbolizes the dual identity of Israeli Arabs.

They have often been regarded by Jewish Israelis as either potential agents for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat or as a bridge to the Arab world. Peace would end such dilemmas, and in villages such as Taibe, signs of peace are everywhere.

"We are the most important sector in the world that is interested in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and in solving this dispute," says Ahmed Tibi of the Arab Party for Change.

At a demonstration critical of Israeli government policies, the Palestinian flag is paraded, and no Israeli colors are displayed.

But for the first time, ultra-nationalists -- who prefer to be called Israeli Palestinians -- are participating in elections.

"Israel should be a state of all its citizens," says Mahmoud Muhareb of the Ittajamah Party. "Israel is the only state in the world that doesn't recognize itself as a state of its citizens, but the state of the Jewish people in the world." (162K AIFF sound or 162K WAV sound)

The hope of deciding the election has also brought into the political fray another powerful group -- the Islamic movement. Usually they boycott Israeli politics, but they deem this moment too critical to miss.

Factionalism still curses the Arab political community, but this time there's an overt common strategy -- to obtain redress for their grievances.

There is a covert aim too -- to overcome inhibitions and bolster Peres, thereby sustaining the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement.

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Palestinian vote could sway Israeli election

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