Saturday, January 24, 2009

On an Israeli opinion poll and the decision of an Israeli court to stop a proposed ban on Arab parties



This article on Fruit and Votes points to the results of an Israeli opinion poll. It seems that the poll indicates Likud could win 28-29 seats; Kadima 25-26 seats; Labour 16-17 seats; Yisrael Beitenu 12-14 seats; Shas 8 seats and Meretz 5-7 seats. It thus does seem that a Likud-led coalition could be likely after the pending Israeli election.

A piece of good news, though, is that the Israeli High Court has overturned attempts to ban the Arab parties from standing in the elections. About 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs and, to its credit, Israel has respected their right to vote in the past. However, the right to vote reduces in importance if the parties you can vote for are restricted. Banning the Arab nationalist and communal parties would thus have resticted Israeli Arabs' right to cast a meaningful vote.

As an aside, though, I do not think that voting for communal parties will help the Arab population in Israel. They are not part of the process of horse-trading and negotiation that results in the creation of coalition governments in Israel. It would be better if the Arab community would vote for mainstream parties who most closely reflect their views. If they did, then this would most probably strengthen the hand of left-wing and progressive parties in Israeli society.

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

No comments: