POLITICAL

GEOGRAPICI,
vol. 13, No. 6, November 1994,540~558

The non-Jewish vote in Israel in 1992

ABSTRACT.
In the Israeli genera1 election of June 1992, non-Jewish voters
comprised 12.3 percent of the electorate. Theoretically, this would be sufficient
to elect 15 nonJewish members to the Knesset if there was a united effort to elect
only Arab representatives. However, three Arab-supported parties took only 4.88
percent of the valid vote and won five (4.17 percent) of the 120 seats in the
Knesset. This unders~tement
of potential electoral strength is due almost
entirely to low voter turnout, unfocused voting patterns among non-Jewish voters
who, in addition to voting for the three predominantly non-Jewish parties, also
cast their votes for the full range of Jewish (Zionist) parties, and the inability of
the Arab parties to agree on distribution of their surplus votes among themselves.
It would not be improper to say that the distribution of the Arab votes in Israel
defies statistical explanation. Statistical analysis of the voting shows that it is
extremely difficult to explain or predict the electoral behaviour of the Arab
population in Israel, as neither geographical nor socio-economic variables reveal
any clear pattern, This study indicates the need for detailed investigations relating
directly to local and neighbourhood
effects in the Arab vote in Israel.

InWoduction
groups in democracies
often fragment
their votes more than members of the
majority, torn between issues of relevance to the electorate in general and issues of
specific concern and significance to the minority itself. Where a minority has been granted
recognition of its existence and rights and given access to some if not all of the national
pie, and where it participates in the life of the state in general, then the minority and its
voters will veer towards majority politics. Where these are absent or perceived as lacking,
then parties exhorting separatism, autonomy or independence
will vie more vigorously for
the support of the electorate (Mikesell and Murphy, 1991).
Electoral geography has been one of the principal vehicles in the revival of political
geography in the past two decades (Taylor and Johnston, 1979; Johnston et al., 1990).
Among its main areas of interest, it deals with spatial aspects of the organization
and
outcome of elections (Johnston, 1977; Waterman 1984) including electoral systems and
electoral reform (Taylor, 1973), the geography of voting (Mamadouh and van der Wusten,
1989), the geography of translating votes into seats (Gudgin and Taylor, 1979) districting
(Morrill, 1973, 1976, 1981, 1982; Taylor and Gudgin, 1976a, 1976b; Paddison, 1977;
Waterman, 1980, 1981; Waterm~ and Zefadia, 1992), the geography of electoral power
(Taylor and Lijphart, 1983, and the importance of locality and local interests in the

Minority

0962-629Wl3106 0540-19 @ 1994 Butterworth-Heinemann

Ltd

STAIUY

WATERMAN

541

outcome of elections (Agnew, 1987). Much of the work in electoral geography has been
empirical, and this is particularly true in the area of the geography of voting. Of particular
interest in this field for geographers has been the attempt to explain patterns of voting
through analysis of various social, geographical and other variables such as social
well-being, economic status, distance from the economic and political core areas of the
state, and so on.
The non-Jewish (mostly Arab) minority in Israel is ethnically distinct from the Jews who
comprise the substantial majority of the voters. Ironically, at the same time that many
Israeli Arabs have veered towards adopting a Palestinian national identity, they have been
converging towards the Jewish majority on the basis of secular values, as mainstream
Israeli society becomes more material and middle class. In addition, not only are there
ethnic differences between Jews and Arabs but the geographical distributions of the two
groups are quite dissimilar, with the latter concentrated in three distinct and separate
regions.
From such basic information on ethnic, social and geographical factors, it might be
reasonable to assume that the voting patterns of the non-Jewish population differ from
those of the Jewish electorate, and that these distinctions emanate from the social and
geographical differences noted above. This paper deals with the voting patterns of the
non-Jewish electorate in Israel in the General Election to the 13th Knesset, Israels
parliament, in June 1992, with particular emphasis on whether variations within the Arab
vote can be observed and whether these variations are primarily regional or are better
explained otherwise.
This issue is gaining in significance as Israel debates the possibility of an electoral
reform where at least half of the Knesset members would be elected in constituencies, a
reform that would bring about distortions to the existing pure proportional system
(Waterman and Zefadia, 1992, 1993) and where the geographical concentrations of Arab
voters could positively affect their levels of representation.
The Arabs in Israel
The population of Israel comprises two main ethnic groups-Jews and Arabs-each of
which comprises several cultural subgroups. Thus, the Jews can be classified on the basis
of their religious observance (i.e. whether they are religious or secular), by community
(usually euphemistically expressed in official publications as country of origin in terms of
Europe-America or Africa-Asia, when the object is really a division into Ashkenazi and
Sephardi, or Western and Oriental communities). Often, there is considerable overlap
between these categories. Nevertheless, it is common knowledge that, in their social and
political characteristics, there is a tendency for non-Ashkenazi Jews to be more traditional
or observant in terms of religious practice, and younger, less well-educated and more
right-wing in their political views; by implication, they are therefore less tolerant towards
the Arabs (Arian, 1979; Shamir and Arian, 1983).
In contrast with the means for classifying the Jewish population, the Arabs in Israel are
usually grouped by religion into three major subgroups-Muslims, Christians and Drutes.
That the Arab population might also be subdivided by level of religious observance, age or
educational attainment or that there might, indeed, be fundamental differences within
each of these accepted subgroups is usually glossed over, if mentioned at all. None the less,
it is generally accepted that, as a group, the Christian minority is more highly educated
than either Muslims or Druzes, and as a consequence Christians have been more
westernized and traditionally they have been more politically active. Christians have thus

542

7?3enon;laorjil, wte in israef in E99Z

customarily formed an Clite among the Palestinian Arab population, a situation which has
changed over the decades and which has led to increased Christian emigration
as
Christians struggle to find their place in an increasingly Islamicized Palestinian national
movement. At the same time, it can be posited that the more traditional Muslim and Druze
populations
are more susceptible
to the political influences
of their accepted
leaders--within
the religious community itself or within the burn&as (clans).
The majority of the non-Jewish population in Israel is concentrated in three locations
(Fz&res 1 and 2). The most important of these is in Northern Israel, in the Galilee, where
they constitute a majority in the hilly area. The major urban settlement in this region is
Nazareth, with a population of over 50000, around which a continuous built-up area has
grown, so that the Nazareth urban area has a population of around 100 000. A second area
of concentration
is in the so-called Little Triangle along the former Armistice Line with the
Jordanian West Bank (the Green Line). This ribbon of settlements stretches southwards to
border on the Tel-Aviv Metropolitan
Region. The settlements here are mostly large,
urbanizing villages and are geographically part of Samaria; in terms of clan relationships
and cultural and political backgrounds, they are close to the settlements of the northern
West Bank. The largest settlement in this area is the town of Umm-el-Fahm in the northern
section, with a population of nearly 25 000.
The third region in Israel in which there is a large number of Arabs is in the Northern
Negev where a policy of sedentarization
of nomads has been pursued since the British
Mandate period. Over the past two decades, this has resulted in several planned urban
settlements where the majority of the Negev Bedouin now live, and of which Rahat and
Tel-Sheva are the largest.
There are also concentrations
of nonJews living close to Jewish populations in what are
usually referred to as mixed towns. These can be found in Haifa and Acre in the northern
coastal plain, in Jaffa (part of the city of Tel-AviwYafo), in the towns of Lod and Ramla, and
in the Jewish new town of Upper Nazareth, near Arab Nazareth, which has been mixed
almost since its establishment
over 30 years ago. Jerusalem, which has the largest single
concentration
of non-Jews in the country, constitutes a special case, as, for specific
historical and political reasons, the vast majority of these people opted out of taking Israeli
citizenship when East Jerusalem was captured by Israel during the Six-Day Way of June
1967 and annexed to West Jerusalem immediately following that. However, even in these
mixed towns, the Jewish and non-Jewish populations have highly dissimilar distributions
and segregation is high, the term mixed town being a misnomer.
Each of these concentrations
of non-Jews has a somewhat different population. The
non-Jewish population of Galilee is the most heterogeneous.
Although the majority of this
population
is Muslim, al1 the Druze (with the exception of those living in the two
settlements of Ussfiya and Daliyat-al-Karmil, near Haifa) and almost all the Christians live
here. Several settlements are exclusively Druze, and several have Christian majorities or
substantial Christian minorities, The Christian and Druze populations are found mostly in
Upper Galilee, whereas Lower Galilee is predominantly
Muslim. Even here, most of the
settlements are Muslim or Muslim dominated. The Arabs of the Little Triangle are almost
uniformly Muslim, as are the Bedouin in the Negev.
With the exception of Nazareth, all non-Jewish settlements in Israel after 1948 were
classified as villages. In the past decade, Umm-el-Fahm, Shfaram and Taibe have fegaliy
become cities although they, like many other Arab settlements, had been transformed
~n~ionally
from village to town long before that. Moreover, almost all the non-Jewish
settlements in Israel in 1992 now have populations of over 2000, at which size they are
designated
by the Central Bureau of Statistics as large villages rather than small
settlements.

543

FIGURE1. Map of Israel.

i%e non-Jewti vote in ISrae in I992

544
Elections

in Israel

By law, Israel must hold regular elections to the Knesset approximately every four years,
although this general rule has been broken for nine of the 13 Knesset elections held since
1348.

.
:.
,.

..

a .:::
::.::
:.,.y.:.:
_._.

..

D .
c=3
,

FIGURE 2. Percentage of non-Jews among all registered voters.

STANLEY WATERMAN

545

The fsraeli electoral system is highly proportional

(Waterman, 1980; Waterman and
Zefadia, 1992,1993). The 120 members of the Knesset are elected by adult suffrage from
lists prepared and presented by political parties. Several weeks before the election, each
party list is presented to the Central Elections Committee where its conformity to the
election law is examined and where its legality may be challenged. Most lists are permitted
to contest the election, although there have been instances when lists have been
invalidated; this occurs where a partys platform is deemed to be against the interests of the
state-as
was the case in the 1960s with regard to one of the Arab lists, and in 1988 and
1992 when lists presented by the party of Rabbi Meir Kahane were disqualified on the basis
of being racist.
Although some lists may emanate from specific social groups (e.g. the Arabs, the
Ultra-Orthodox Jews), all lists compete (in theory) for the votes of a single, national
constituency. There is no subdivision of the country into electoral districts. Any party
receiving at least 1.5 percent of the popular valid vote (in 1992, just over 39000 votes) is
entitled to representation
as far as possible in proportion to the votes won. Wastage of
votes is small and large discrepancies between the proportion of the popular vote and the
allocation of parliamentary seats among the parties are avoided.2
Draft laws for reform of the electoral system have been tabled in the Knesset on several
occasions since the early 1950s. Until 1992, when a law was adopted to enable the prime
minister to be elected independently
of the Knesset, these proposals were regularly
defeated. The small parties have been particularly virulent in opposing change as, under
the present system in which no party (or even bloc) has been able to win an outright
majority of seats, they have enjoyed a pivotal position in Israels parliament, sometimes
joining a coalition led by parties of the right and sometimes of the left, wielding political
power beyond their parIi~en~~
numbers. However, opposition to reform is widespread
not only among the small parties; had the two large parties wanted electoral reform, they
could have achieved it with ease, as in recent years they have controlled approximately
two-thirds of the seats in the Knesset. The reasons for opposition to electoral reform
among some members of the large parties differ from those of the small parties, but are
nevertheless strongly defended (see Waterman and Zefadia, 1992, 1993).
The upshot of this highly proportional,
nationally orientated parliamentary
political
system is that even relatively small interest groups contest elections as political parties, in
the hope that a specific issue might garner sufficient votes country-wide for representation.
For example, the 1992 elections attracted over 25 party lists of which 10 were represented.
The corollary of this national and proportional
political bias in the Xsraeh parliamentary
electoral system is that parties with a regional bias are unable to capitalize on this to the
full as there are no geographical constituencies.
Many interest groups do not participate in the elections as parties, preferring, as do the
left-wing Peace Now or the right-wing Gush Emunim, to lobby support within the
frameworks of already existing parties.
In the 1992 elections, the principal programmatic difference among the main parties
centred on the general attitudes towards settling the dispute between Israel and the Arabs.
The right-wing Likud party, the senior member of the outgoing coalition, had gone
reluctantly to the peace talks that opened in Madrid in October 1991 and was dogmatic and
inflexible (hawkish) on issues of territory, refusing to accede to the concept of land for
peace. The left-of-centre Labour party, which had controlled Israeli politics from the
foundation of the state in 1948 until the transfer of power to the Likud in 197, adopted a
more flexible and pragmatic (doveish) attitude to this issue even though some senior
members of the party, including the leader Yitzhak Rabin, were hawks. On social matters,

546
these parties

7be non-JevAsbvote in Israelin 192

differed little. Likud tended to adopt a more populist attitude on social

matters than a Labour party that had made the transition from being a dogmatic socialist
party representing
workers to a pragmatic, middle-class social democratic party. On
economic
issues, both major parties were for open and liberal economic policies
tempered by a generous ration of ~tatkm.
Mere& an amalgamation
of three smaller parties, two left-wing and one centrist, stood
left of Labour. It was more stridently peace-orientated
than Labour and its members
reflected the spectrum of Labour views on economic and social matters, though from a
more liberal base. To the right of Likud were several small parties, all of which made the
possible cession of territory the main issue of the day. One of these parties, Moledet, had
transfer of the non-Jewish population as its banner (although it failed to explain who was
to be transferred,
when, from or to where). Another, Tzomet, which increased its
representation
from two seats in the 12th Knesset to eight in the current parliament,
adopted a stridently secular stance on social issues in addition to its hypernationalist
approach to territory and security, thus attracting right-wing supporters
who had
reservations about the coalitions dependence
on religious support and the concessions
made to the religious parties during the years of Likud rule. A third right-wing party,
Tehiya, which had been the rallying point of the settlers in the West Bank, failed to gain
representation
in the current Knesset.
In addition to the left-right split over issues in Israeli politics, and to some extent
superimposed
on it, is the religious-secular
cleavage. The Jewish religious parties have
held the balance of power in the past two decades and have made the most of this. The
National Religious Party (NRP) has, since 1977, adopted a shrill messianic nationalism on
the territorial issue that has been reflected in issues dear to it, such as education, and has
blinded its stance on almost all other issues. The ultra-orthodox
parties-Agti
and
.Shas-have
always adopted more flexible issues. Aguda represents Ashkenazi (European
origin) orthodoxy; Shas the Sephardim (Middle East and North African). They make no
bones about religious issues (sensu stricto) being their main concern, and are prepared to
support the ruling party of the day on other issues provided the religious issues are given
due prominence,
and to their satisfaction.
Tucked in amongst this uncompromising
Jewish colour of Israeli politics are several
parties which pitch their election campaigns at the non-Jewish (mainly Arab) voter. Their
main concerns
are in raising the living standards and the economic
and social
opportunities
of the Arab population of Israel z&b-vti the Jews, and in pursuing foreign
and security issues that might lead to a reconciliation between Israel and the Arab states
and Israel and the Palestinians. Three Arab parties-the
Communists, the Arab Democratic
Party and the Progressive List for Peace-contested
the 1992 elections; the first two
received sufficient votes to warrant representation,
winning five seats between them. The
differences among these parties are dealt with below.
There is not always a clear-cut correspondence
between the social characteristics of the
electorate and expected voting behaviour on the one hand, and actual voting patterns, on
the other. For instance, many Jewish religious voters choose not to make religious issues
the main issues in their choice of political party, and vote for one or other of the secular
parties (Newman, 1989). By the same token, not all the non-Jewish voters in Israel vote for
an Arab party, choosing instead one of the Jewish (Zionist) parties, even those which
appear to be far from supporting their interests, at least at the national level.
Furthermore,
the 1992 election in Israel differed in several respects from the previous
election of November
1988, all of which undoubtedly
had some influence on the
considerations
of the electorate when entering the polling booths on election day.

STANLEY
WATERMAN

547

Notable among these were the following. The Islamic Movement, which did not contest
the parliamentary elections in 1988 or 1992, had won considerable support in the local
government elections of February 1989 where they won control of two local authorities
and became power brokers in several others. The movement was intent on building on
this power base in the intervening three years and used this power to influence its
supporters in the 1992 parliamentary election. This heightened influence of a
fundamentalist Islamic party in Israel only paralleled the rise in such parties throughout
the Middle East and North Africa.
In addition, the int@du, or popular uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip against
Israeli occupation, was in its fifth year with few signs of abatement and several signs of
intensification. Although the intifada was restricted to the Occupied Territories, this
revolt-which
received the tacit support of many Israeli Arabs and less unreserved
support from some Israeli Arab politicians-contributed
to Palestinian identity and
national aspirations, and was seen by many political commentators as a further potential
contributor to a more extremist Arab vote in 1992.
Two other factors, both concerned with recent global events, complicated the issues for
the non-Jewish voters in Israel at the 1992 election. The GulfWar of early 1991 had split the
Arab world, and divided feelings amongst the Arabs in Israel. The PLO leadership had
given its outright support to Iraq in this conflict, and support for Iraq-which had tried to
draw Israel into the conflict through missile attacks on populated areas in Israel-among
Arabs in the Occupied Territories and in Israel as a means of protesting Israeli policies
against the territories in particular and Arabs in general was initially widespread.
At the same time, the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that, for the first time, the
Israeli Communist Party was forced to contest an election without the financial and moral
backing of the USSR. Not only did the Communists face a novel financial and ideological
situation, but they found themselves in direct competition with the Islamic Movement and
other parties for Arab nationalist votes and had to adapt their rhetoric to this new situation
and apply the partys election machinery, developed over the previous 30 years, to the full.
The non-Jewish vote in Israel
At the Knesset election of June 1992, the non-Jewish voters comprised 12.3 percent of the
electorate. Three parties can be considered to be non-Jewish parties. These were (a) the
Democratic List for Peace and Equality (DLPE), comprising the Israel Communist Party
(New Communist List---&z/z&) and several fringe Arab and Jewish protest groups (this list
is usually referred to simply as Rakab or the Communists); (b) the Progressive List for
Peace (PLP); and (c) the Arab Democratic Party (ADP). In elections up to the 1980s parties
representing non-Jewish interests (in addition to the Communists) were composed of
members of the traditional (mainly rural) leadership, and voting tended to be along clan
lines.
This paper relates mainly to the voting patterns of the large majority of the non-Jewish
population in Israel which lives in exclusively non-Jewish settlements. Although it is also of
interest to examine urban Arabs in the mixed towns, the statistics that related specifically
to non-Jewish voters there were less readily available and also less reliable. Nevertheless,
occasional reference will be made to some of those polling districts in which the voters
were predominantly non-Jewish.3
Of these three parties, Rukub is the longest established, having contested all elections
since 1965. Between 1965 and 1984, it formed the principal vehicle for the expression of
Arab nationalism in Israel. The party has always claimed not to be an Arab party, but an

7be non-Jewish

548

vote in Israel in 1992

orthodox Marxist-Leninist
party, representing the rights of the workers, Arab and Jewish.
Its slate of candidates has had alternating Jewish and Arab candidates, so as to reflect
scrupulously the official non-ethnic party ideology. Its votes, however, have always come
predominantly
from the Arab sector. In 1992, as in 1988, over 98 percent of the partys total
vote came from Arab polling stations.
The PLP appeared for the first time at the elections of July 1984. It was regarded at that
time as an extreme Arab nationalist party, unencumbered
with Communist ideology, and
suspected of having links with the Palestine Liberation Organisation
(PLO). As such,
unsuccessful
attempts were made to prevent the party from participating in the 1984
elections, and again in 1988. Like R&ah, the PLP suffers from an image (at least as it
pertains to some non-Jewish voters) of being a mixed Arab-Jewish party, based on its
official ideology; its support, like that for Rukub, was almost totally Arab.
The ADP was formed prior to the 1988 election by an Arab Knesset member who had
been elected in 1984 on the Israel Labour Party list and who felt that Labour had not done
enough to further the interests of Arabs who had supported Labour in 1984 and that more
could be accomplished by competing directly for the non-Jewish vote. Unlike Rukab and
the PLP, the ADP was unhampered by a bi-national ideology and took part in the election as
an exclusively non-Jewish party.
In addition to the option of casting a vote, it has been traditional among non-Jewish
voters in the State of Israel to express their opposition to the legitimacy of the state
through non-participation
in the electoral process. Thus, in those settlements in which a
large proportion of the voters support the Arab nationalist cause, it might be expected that
in addition to a high proportion of the valid vote being cast for Arab-supported parties, that
there might also be a high percentage of non-voters. While, in the Jewish sector, the level
of voting remained fairly stable at between 78 and 80 percent of the eligible voters over the
past 28 years (it fell to 76.8 percent in 1992), participation levels in the Arab sector have
been much more volatile, ranging from a high of 80 percent in the election of 1973
(immediately following the Yom Kippur War) to a low of just under 70 percent in 1981,
rising again to 74 percent in the election of 1988, and falling to under 70 percent again in
1992 (see Table I).
Whereas the 1988 election was held in the shadow of the intifada, which began in
December 1987, the 1992 election took place against a background of peace talks between
Israel and the Arabs, including a Palestinian delegation that represented the interests of the
TABLE 1.

Voting in non-Jewish settlements,

1992 by registered voters

Percentage uoteforparties f

Size

VoterparTicipation

Fxakah

PLP

ADP

others

25 000+

66.7

44.9

5.2

20.7

29.2

10 000-24 999
5 000-9 999
2 000-4 999
Under 2000
Bedouins

67.4
68.9
73.9
71.9
57.3

37.8
14.3
19.0
9.5
2.7

12.2
8.2
7.0
5.9
3.0

10.9
8.5
14.9
14.0
28.4

39.1
69.0
59.1
70.6
59.8

Total

68.9

31.0

11.9

14.7

42.4

Nofez *Percentage of total registered voters participating

tpercentage of total valid vote cast.

in the election.

STANLEY

549

WATERMAN

PLO in all but name. In 1988, the PLO encouraged Arabs in 1srae1 to participate in the
electoral process, lending general support for parties supporting the advancement of
peace (see al-Haj, 1989: 35). Referring to the 1988 election, al-Haj showed that the inrjfada
had a strong iniluence on the content of electoral propaganda but not on the results of the
elections. Those parties that attempted to make political profit from the intifada misread
the feelings of the Arab voters whose Palestinian-Israeli identity simultaneously involves
Palestinian nationalist sentiments and aspirations for full equality as Israeli citizens. The
Arabs of Israel have had long experience in searching for the correct balance between
both of these elements (al-Ha& 1989 46-47; Waterman, 1990).
In the 1992 election, the three Arab-supported parties took 4.88 percent of the valid vote,
down from 6.49 percent in 1988, and won five of the 120 (4.17 percent) of the seats in the
Knesset, a decrease of one seat. This understatement of their electoral strength (4.88
percent of the vote should have provided them with six seats) was due almost entirely to
the failure of the three parties to come to agreement over the distribution of surplus votes,
so great was their rivalry. The votes of the non-Jewish electorate were even more widely
distributed than those of their non-Jewish counterparts, as non-Jews, in addition to voting
for the three predominantly non-Jewish parties, also cast their votes for the full range of
Jewish (Zionist) parties. If united in an endeavour to elect Arabs only, the non-Jewish
electorate could theoretically elect 15 nonJewish members to the Knesset (see al-Haj,
1989: 35).
In the non-Jewish settlements (in which non-Jews accounted for over 99 percent of the
registered voters), the three Arab parties received 57.6 percent of the votes, a slight decline
from the 58.3 percent of the toa valid vote obtained in 1988. In other words, more than
two of every five non-Jewish voters who cast a valid vote chose a Zionist party. This was
slightly higher in the large Arab settlements. In settlements with between 2000 and 5000
voters, the proportion was only 40.9 percent, and in the smallest group of settlements, just
30.2 percent. It was lower among the Bedouin, where, outside the two towns of Rahat and
Tel Sheva, the three parties together won just 42.1 percent; in these towns, they won 52.8
percent and 32.7 percent, respectively. Among the Arab voters in the predominantly
non-Jewish areas of the mixed towns, support for the Arab-supported parties was higher
than average in Acre and in Lad; However, the Arab-supported parties did particularly
poorly in those settlements with between 5000 and 10 000 registered voters, owing to the
several Druze settlements in this size range (Table I>.*
Even at this coarse scale, definite differences can be observed among levels of support
for each of the three Arab-supported parties (see Table 2). &Ah gained overall less than
50 percent of the votes cast for Arab parties; in 1988, the overall ratio between RiA& and
the other two parties combined had been approximately 4:3. In Nazareth, the proportion
of the vote for R&rub was 44.9 percent of the total vote. In general within the non-Jewish

TAEU2. Vote for Arab-supportedparties, 1977-92

-9
F7.P
ADP
Mimilyiists -withLabour

Otherminoritylists

1977

1981

1984

1988

1992

80118.

64918

69815
38012

84032
33 695
27012

62 539
24211
40744

24 185
6780

11590
10900

550

7&e non_Jeurish vote in Israelin 1992

sector, the smaller the settlement, the greater was the support for the ADP and the smaller
that for the PLP and Rakab. Among the Bedouin voters, over 83 percent of the votes cast for
the three Arab-supported parties were cast for the ADP, although it should be noted here
that the turnout, at 57.3 percent of the registered voters, was very low; in the towns of Rabat
and Tel-Sheva, the pattern showed greater support for Rakab, as was the general case with
regard to settlement size. Generally, in the mixed towns, there was support for Rakab.
However, over and above general statements such as these, attempts to uncover
statistical explanations for the variation in the nonJewish vote at the 1992 general election
throughout Israel fail. No single socio-economic variable and no combination of variables
are good predictors of how the voters in any settlement might have voted. Using more than
120 separate non-Jewish settlements as the observational units, the relationships between
several variables were examined in an attempt to postdict the dependent variable, the
percentage of the total valid vote for non-Jewish parties in 1992. These variables included
the population (1987 estimate) and number of registered voters (1992) in each settlement,
the percentage of the total population comprising each of Muslims, Christians and Druzes
(1983 Census), and voter participation in the 1992 and three previous elections (1988,
1984,1981), and the percentage of the total valid vote at each election for each of the three
Arab parties, and for the three major blocs of Jewish parties, Left, Right and Religious.
The only variables useful in predicting support for the Arab parties in 1992 were the
extent of support for these parties in the elections of 1981-88, and the proportion
of
Druze in the population. Although previous support levels might be of interest as part of a
statistical exercise, it is of little practical use in understanding
electoral behaviour, except
as a comment on the conservative nature of voting habits (see Agnew, 1987). When those
settlements with Druze inhabitants were examined separately, very high correlation
(? = 0.91) was found between the proportion of the population Druze and the proportion
of the total valid vote for Zionist parties.
There is little reason to assume that the data are faulty. Thus, part of the reason for poor
ability of the statistics to predict the way in which the electorate in a given settlement is
likely to vote can be found in the low level of mutual correlation amongst the variables.
Settlements of all sizes are found amongst the three religious groups-Muslims,
Christians
and Druzes, and throughout the country as a whole. For instance, although many of the
settlements
in the Negev desert were relatively small Bedouin encampments
and
semi-permanent
settlements, the presence of the two towns of Rahat and Tel-Sheva made
the Negev, at least superficially, appear to vote like Galilee. The fact that the large majority
of the Arab settlements were inhabited by Muslims tended to make the variables relating to
religious proportions worthless. Even when an attempt was made to mitigate the factor of
distance from Nazareth by analysing the data for Galilee alone, the results were no more
satisfying.
Voterparticipation

Voter participation varied from over 90 percent, including a Bedouin tribe in the Negev
(where the turnout had been 100 percent in 1988), several Bedouin settlements in Galilee,
and two medium-sized Druze settlements, to under 20 percent, also for Bedouin tribes in
the Negev and the North. In general, voter participation among the Druze of Western
Galilee was high, at over 80 percent and, in the two cases noted above, over 90 percent; in
every instance, the turnout was smaller than it had been in the 1988 election. On the other
hand, participation in the Druze villages on the Golan Heights was low, with less than half
the small number of registered voters there casting their ballots. In very general terms,

.?k.WLm wAT.fXMAN

551

voter participation was low in the large settlements of the Little Triangle which border the
former Green Line. In these settlements, only between half and two-thirds of the voters
participated. This figure was down by between 10 and 15 percent from the 1988 election,
indicating perhaps a calculated effort among nationalist circles, especially radical Islamic
ones, to veto the election, although attempts to correlate the size of the change in the
turnout with variables such as levels of support for various parties at different elections or
the size or ethnic composition
of the settlements yielded no worthwhile results (see
Diskin 1989: 32).

Votesfor the Arab-suppovtedpartaks

Less than 60 percent of the non-Jewish voters cast their ballots for one or other of the
Arab-supported
parties (see Figure 3). This figure was a slight decline on the
corresponding
figure for the previous election of 1988. The statistics for this set of data
ranged from over 90 percent in the settlement of Arrabe in Upper Galilee and 81 percent
in the town of Umm-el-Fahm to less than 10 percent for several villages, mostly with large
Druze populations.
Of those settlements
with a low proportion
of their vote for
Arab-supported parties, several were the same Druze Villages in Western Galilee for which
high voter participation has already been noted. However, others in this category include
Bedouin settlements in Galilee and the Negev where turnout was low. It is of note that the
vote for Zionist parties was not restricted to the left-wing parties; several of the Druze
settlements cast between a third and half of their total valid votes for right-wing Zionist
parties, although this feature was much more restricted in the non-Druze settlements. This
indicates, once again, that the Druze sector of the non-Jewish population still behaves, 45
years after the establishment
of the state, quite differently from the Arab Muslim and
Christian communities. This feature tallies with Israels policies towards the Druze; they
are recognized as a separate communi~ and the state requires compulsory military service
from them; the Druze, in their turn, identify with the state in that they are disproportionately
represented
in the permanent
(voluntary) security forces. Despite the
Druze factor, most of the towns and villages in the non-Jewish sector us a whole cast at least
5 percent of their votes for the Zionist Right, and, in over a third of them, the proportion
was over 10 percent. In almost a quarter of the settlements in the non-Jewish sector over 20
percent of the valid vote was cast for Jewish religious parties; this phenomenon
is found
not only in some of the smaller Druze and Bedouin settlements, but also in several Muslim
towns with populations of 5000 and over. This long-established
and apparently anomalous
feature is related to the long tenures of religious parties in the Interior, Education and
Religious Affairs ministries with their concomitant
facilities for the disbursement
of
government funds.

Rak& is the largest and longest established

of the three Arab-supported

parties. Its
headquarters are in the north of Israel and centred on Nazareth. However, distance from
Nazareth does not, in itself, explain the variation in support for the party. In Nazareth, 63.7
percent of the total valid votes cast in the city for one of the three Arab parties went to
Rakub-the three Arab parties accounted for just over 70 percent of the votes cast in the
largest Arab city in Israel. Ignoring those (mainly Druze) settlements in which the vote for
the Arab parties was minuscule, the highest proportions were cast in the large Western
Galilee villages of Kafr Yassif (72 percent) and Sakhnin (71 percent) and the city of

The non@wis~ vote in Israel in 19.2

552

Umm-el-Fahm (81 percent). Kafr Yassif is a settlement in which almost 60 percent of the
inhabitants are Christians, whereas Sakhnin and Umm-el-Fahm are 100 percent Muslim.
However, in another Christian settlement, Fassuta, less than 15km from Kafr Yassif, the
vote for Rcak~ amounted to less than 19 percent of the total popular vote. Even in those
large settlements to the north-east of Nazareth which form part of the Nazareth urban area,

m Over 50%
- 25.1% - 50%
g@J10.1% _25%
m 5.1% _10%
CZI 5% and less

FIGURE3. Percentage of total valid votes cast for three Arab parties.

STANLEY wA=FthiAN

553

the proportion of the total vote for the party was low; in one, the proportion was 52
percent, and in the other two just slightly under and over 30 percent, respectively. In no
other settlement in the Little Triangle region did the proportion of the Arab vote cast for
R&ah among the three Arab parties approach the proportion cast in Umm-el-Fahm.
Support for Rukab in this region varied between 10 percent and 57 percent of the vote.

FIGLRE
4. Percentage of votes for ADPas a proportion of all votes for three Arab parties.

5%

ZTFxnon-Jeu&b v0& in fsrael in 2992

When this is tied into the patterns of support for the PLP and the ADP, the processes at
work become much more readily understood. In the 1984 elections, when the PLP gained
two seats in the Knesset, it gained over 20 percent of the vote in almost all the settlements
in the Little Triangle, and over 40 percent in some of the centres there including the large
urbanizing villages of Tira and Baqa-el-Gharbiyya.
In almost all the settlements close to
Nazareth, the PLP failed to gain 20 percent of the vote. However, in the large settlements in
the Sakhnin area further to the north in which the three large settlements of Sakhnin,
Arrabe and Deir Hat-ma are located-an
area known for its hostility to the state and for its
opposition within the Arab camp to the leadership that emerged from the Nazareth
area-more
substantial support for the PLP was observed. In one settlement, Arrabe, in
which support for Arab-supported
parties amounted to over 95 percent of the valid vote
and in which voter turnout was very high (over 82 percent), over 40 percent of the vote
went to it.
With the appearance
in I988 of the ADP, support for the PLP dropped
almost
everywhere. Only in one small settlement in the Triangle--&a-did
the party manage to
achieve 40 percent of the vote. The ADP captured support from both the other two
Arab-supported
parties. Although the founder of the party, former Labour Party Knesset
member, Abd-el-W~ab Daraoushe, began the 1988 campaign with a grievance against the
inaction of the Labour Party u&-&vis the Arab population
and was considered
as a
moderate, his party was perceived differently among wide sections of the non-Jewish
electorate. It was seen as the only Arab party without a Marxist ideology (as in the case of
Z&&ah) or with a need to present an image of promoting the best interests of Jewish-Arab
cooperation by presenting a joint Arab-Jewish list to the electorate (Rukab and the PLP).
Indeed, it was perceived by many Arab voters as the party representing the real interests of
the Arabs of Israel. In the event, it won just a single seat in 1988, but its support was
strongest around Nazareth (in Daraoushes home region), and among the Bedouin of the
Negev. Many Bedouin felt that since the Labour Party had dropped a Bedouin candidate
from its party list in 1984 they had been unrepresented
in the Knesset, especially as they
perceived that the two other Arab-supported parties served the interests of the urbanizing
masses in the north of the country, Among several of the Bedouin tribes, this party won
over half of the total vote (see Ben-David, 1989).
In 1992, the ADP increased its share of the vote for the three Arab parties to 24 percent
(see Figure 4). The geographical distribution of the votes for the ADP that was observed at
the 1988 election was repeated in 1992. Over 83 percent of the Bedouin votes that were
cast for one or other of the three Arab parties went to the ADP, and support for the party in
the small and medium-sized settlements was also higher than the average proportion for
the Arab sector as a whole. Si~i~~tly,
it raised its share of the vote in Nazareth to 20.3
percent. The PLP support dropped everywhere, to under 20 percent of the total vote for the
Arab parties. As it did not reach the 1.5 percent quota of the overall popular vote
throughout the country, it failed to elect Knesset members. The fundamentalist
Islamic
Movement, which has not yet contested a parliamentary
election, indicated to its
supporters that the ADP platform was the closest to its policies, a factor that probably
contributed to some of the rise in the vote for this party.

Summary and conclusions

The Arab vote in Israel is volatile although it represents far more than just a protest vote.
The explanations for this have to come from analyses that deal not simply with statistics but
that seek reasons in underlying social and political processes, such as the struggle among

.?&.%NLYWAN

555

Arabs in Israel to achieve real civil equality, rises in the standards of living and education
and the emergence of Palestinian identity.
As is the case with all Israeli citizens, the non-Jewish voters have a basic right to decide
whether or not they wish to participate in the electoral process. Non-participation
has
traditionally been taken to indicate two separate situations-either
ignorance of the
electoral process or a deliberate
decision to express hostility to the state and its
institutions.
Arab-supported
parties and Jewish parties alike seek the votes of the nonJewish
electorate. In 1992, as in 1988, three gab-suppled
parties-each
with its own distinctive
nationalist appeal-contested
the election. The appeal of these parties went above and
beyond clan interests in most cases. In some cases, the Jewish parties are ideologically
motivated to seek a modus vivendi
between Jews and Arabs (as in the case of Mere&, and
perhaps the Labour Party); in other cases, there is no ideological motive whatsoever, and
political support is solicited through promises to act on the voters behalf usually through
the medium of a local political activist. Far from voting uniformly, and far from supporting
only Arab-supported
parties, the Arab voters in Israel still cast almost half their votes for
Jewish or Zionist parties, in a country in which the secret vote is sacred.
The way in which this is done is changing. Whereas, in the past, some of the larger
Jewish parties would place an Arab candidate high enough on their party list to ensure his
election, or would openly lend their support to one or other of the Arab lists (until the
198Os, Arab lists reflecting traditional, clan-based Arab interests contested Israel elections),
this is no longer the case. The centre and left-wing Jewish parties still insist that active
Arab-Jewish coexistence is part of their platform and this obviously appeals to part of the
Arab electorate despite the rise in nationalist emotions and chauvinist jingoism on both
sides. Most of the major Zionist parties have made a point of appealing to this sizeable
nonJewish
electorate, and several non-Jewish Members of Knesset were elected from
tlewish party lists in 1992, two becoming Deputy Ministers.
However, it is almost impossible to observe either geographical or socioeconomic
variables that can reveal a clear pattern in this phenomenon.
In fact, it would not be
improper
to say that the distribution
of the Arab votes in Israel defies statistical
explanation. This is, in effect, a reiteration of Agnews conclusions on the relative success
and failure of the SNP in Scotland (Agnew, 1987: 108-141).
The size of the settlement seems to be a factor only in influencing the general support
for nonJewish parties, in that larger size generally means higher support. However, there
are so many exceptions to this generalization that even this is rendered of little value. Nor
do religious divisions within the non-Jewish sector seem to reveal much. Support for
Arab-supported
parties is very low among most of the Druze settlements but not all; the
highest support for Rcz.Jzub
came in a large Muslim town in the Triangle region, in a large,
predominantly
Christian settlement and a large Muslim village in Western Galilee. Perhaps
there is a lack of support for the ADP among the Christians and the Druzes, but this, too, is
far from clear. One of the major implications of this study is that it indicates the need for
further detailed investigations that relate directly to local and neighbourhood
effects in the
Arab vote in Israel, as it is clear that statistical analyses do not reveal much.
Further indication of the volatility in the Arab vote is shown by the fact that the tendency,
observed through the late 1970s and early 198Os, for a decreased participation rate among
non-Jewish voters-which
appeared to have been reversed in 19888-has risen yet again.
Whether this non-pa~icipation
rate, higher than that among the Jewish voters, is due to
greater awareness related to education and modernization,
or whether those abstaining as
a protest against the Zionist state now perceive that they have candidates worthy of

556

The rwn@w&b

vote in Israel in 1992

support, a phenomenon
suggested by the high level of support for fundamentalist
Islamic
parties at the local level (see Diskin, 1989: 32), remains to be seen in the pattern of future
elections.
What this paper indicates most emphatically is that it is extremely difficult, if not
altogether impossible, to predict or explain the electoral behaviour of the Arab population
in Israel. Although half the non-Jewish voters supported non-Jewish parties in 1992, the
other half gave their support to Zionist parties. Even when the Druze voters are accounted
for, the proportion
of Arabs supporting Jewish parties is still higher than might be
expected.
Given that statistical analysis fails to provide a satisfactory explanatory medium, it follows
that more fruitful avenues might be opened by examining other factors such as economic
status, individual advantage and personal contact with Jews at work and elsewhere, which
may provide better explanations even though such approaches might be more unattractive
and difficult and involve intensive survey work.
In a political climate in Israel in which electoral reform remains an active issue, it
appears that the Arab parties would stand to gain if they could find common ground
among themselves (Waterman and Zefadia, 1992). This potential gain by the Arab parties
results from their geographical concentration
in a few limited areas. At this stage, it is
sufficient to say that were the non-Jewish voters to participate in future elections at the
same level of participation as the Jews, if they were to give a greater proportion of their
vote to Arab parties, if the Arab-supported parties were to cooperate amongst themselves
over the issue of distribution
of surplus votes, and given their higher rates of natural
growth, then the outcome of such elections would yield a result in which the non-Jewish
parties would receive more than the 4.2 percent of the seats and 4.9 percent of the popular
vote that they achieved in 1992.
Notes
1. The mapping units employed in Figures 2-4 are Natural Regions. Natural Regions are a creation of
the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics and are useful for presenting statistics at national scale.
There are 45 Natural Regions, and thus the mapping scale allows the statistics to be represented
more finely compared with the six Districts or 15 Subdistricts. Each Natural Region nests within a
single District or Subdistrict. Natural Regions are continuous
areas, as far as possible
homogeneous
in their physical structure, climate, soil, and in the demographic, economic and
cultural characteristics of their population (Statistical Abstract of Israel, No. 43, Jerusalem: Central
Bureau of Statistics, 1992, p. 20).
2. All Israeli citizens-Jews,
Muslims, Christians, Druzes and others-over
the age of 18 are entitled
to vote in Knesset elections. This entitlement does not apply to Israeli citizens abroad on election
day (with the exception of the merchant marine and Israeli government representatives)
or to
non-Jewish residents of the occupied territories of the West Bank (Judaea and Samaria) and Gaza.
Israeli citizens who are residents of these territories are entitled to vote. Non-Jewish citizens of
East Jerusalem can vote in Knesset elections (the vast majority of Arab residents of East Jerusalem
chose not to opt for Israeli citizenship when it was annexed to West Jerusalem immediately
following the Six-Day War of 1967; a similar situation applies to the Druze living in four villages on
the Golan Heights). East Jerusalem Arabs are entitled to vote in Jerusalems municipal elections if
they so wish, as can other non-citizen residents of any local authority in Israel provided they can
prove residence of six months at least. This does not apply to Arabs from the occupied territories.
3. Almost all rural settlements in Israel are either exclusively Jewish or non-Jewish. The 1992
Statistical Yearbook of Israel defines eight urban localities as mixed, in which there is a majority
of Jews but a considerable minority of non-Jews. These are Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv-Yafo, Haifa, Acre
Ramle, Lad, Maalot-Tarshiba and Nazareth Illit (since 1983) and one mixed rural settlement, Neue

557

STANLEYWATERMAN

Shalom, since 1985. Although a small number of polling areas are exclusively non-Jewish, this is
not the general case. Consequently, analysis of the voting patterns of polling areas that were
predominantly, but not exclusively, non-Jewish would provide a false representation
of the data.
4. Non-Jews vote for Jewish (Zionist) parties for a variety of reasons. In the 1950s and 196Os, the
Labour Party, by virtue of its status as predominant party, was in a position not only to make
political promises but also to make the promises effective. Often it accomplished this indirectly,
supporting independent Arab lists which, in turn, supported Labour in the Knesset. Likewise, the
National Religious Party and, from 1984, Shas, have controlled the Interior Ministry, one which has
great influence over budgets to local government and planning procedures.
Some parties, such as Mapm and the Citizens Rights Movement (today both constituents of
Mere&),
are ideologically predisposed to promoting minority rights and coexistence between
Arabs and Jews, and attract Arab voters as a result. Some non-Jewish voters, especially some
sections of the Druze community who tend to think of themselves as a separate, non-Arab
community, support the Likud, and by doing so loudly express their loyalty to the Jewish
(non-Arab) state!

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