MK Yousef Jabareen, a senior member of the Joint List, an alliance of the main Arab-majority political parties in Israel, shares his expectations of the March 2 parliamentary elections.
Sputnik: How would you asses PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy in the upcoming election, especially after unveiling the ‘deal of the century’ plan? How does this shape the electoral behaviour among the Arab voters?
Yousef Jabareen: Netanyahu is trying his best now in his third election in order to gain the 61 seats to form a right-wing coalition. And the publication of the deal of the century a few weeks before the election was with the purpose of assisting him in gaining more support in the Jewish street. However, we are in the joint list are making every effort to increase our representation. Currently, we are in 13 seats. We hope that we could reach maybe 16 seats out there. In this case, it would be impossible for Netanyahu to reach 61. So we are addressing a lot of the community about the importance of going out tomorrow to vote to get rid of Nathaniel and his extreme and for his racist policies.
Sputnik: What do you expect the Arab voter turnout to be? Is the atmosphere different from the September election?
Yousef Jabareen: We hope the turnout in the community will be higher. The last time it was around 60, while the Jewish community was over 70. We feel that our community is willing to take part in this election. In fact, the deal of the century has increased the willingness of our community to participate. Because the deal of the century has revealed the dangers of the Netanyahu regime. We see that the deal of the century perpetuates the occupation of our Palestinian people, denies the Palestinian right for self-determination, annexing settlements. But also the deal of the century includes the provision about stripping hundreds of thousands of Arab citizens from their Israeli citizenship. So this idea got an outrageous reaction in our community. And we hope that this would be reflected also in the polls tomorrow.
Sputnik: Netanyahu has promised to start annexing settlements and other West Bank areas unilaterally if he wins a majority. How high are the chances that we will see a further escalation of tensions and clashes between Israel and Palestine?
Yousef Jabareen: This will be a deep and reasonable concern because Netanyahu has been already implementing ideas of the annexation of the settlements by enacting what we call annexation laws, laws that basically normalize the relationship between the state of Israel and the Israeli legal system and the settlements in the West Bank. So this will be a really dangerous, not dangerous for the Palestinians, but it's dangerous for the peace of the entire region. And I want to emphasize also that the American deal it is not that it goes against Palestinian rights. It goes against international law and international consensus. And it's dangerous for international stability. This is exactly why we try to do our best to be able to block Netanyahu from getting 61 seats. Netanyahu is also facing criminal charges. And such coalition should want to protect him from the criminal procedure. And altogether it will be not just a sad day but would be also a dangerous development for the entire region.