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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
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
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