Arab Seeks Israel's Top Job
Israel's first Arab candidate for prime minister knows he has no chance of winning May 17 elections, but Azmi Bishara believes his bid for prime minister -- like Jesse Jackson's past run for the U.S. presidency -- will galvanize his disaffected constituents and give Israel's largest minority a stronger political voice.
The 42-year-old Christian from Nazareth rattles off social injustices like the names of relatives.
Although Israel's Arabs make up nearly 20 percent of the population, he says, they are only 5 percent of the public sector work force. Arabs have traditionally lacked the same access to public funds to improve their roads and schools.
"The plan here is to put the issues of Arab minorities in Israel at the center of the political map," he said Thursday at a news conference formally announcing his candidacy.
Bishara, who has a doctoral degree and is fluent in five languages, said he expected to get 50 percent of the Arab vote when he faces the other four Jewish candidates.
He needs 50,000 signatures by Tuesday to register his candidacy. Two days after his party approved the bid, he had collected 20,000 names, he said, many from Jewish Israelis.
Bishara faces hard-line Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose freeze on peace talks with the Palestinians helped precipitate early elections; opposition Labor Party leader Ehud Barak and centrist candidate Yitzhak Mordechai, who both advocate resumption of peace talks; and Benny Begin, a hard-liner who advocates jettisoning peace agreements.
Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist, wrote in The Jerusalem Post newspaper Thursday that Bishara could do for Arabs what Jackson did for African-Americans.
"No black had ever run for America's highest office and Jackson knew he had no chance," Kuttab wrote. "But his candidacy had as much to do with raising awareness as with trying to win elections. Bishara is in a similar position."
Bishara said he likes the comparison.
He knows he'll be knocked out on May 17 but, as Jackson demanded support for his issues when it came to backing other Democratic candidates, Bishara plans to endorse the run-off candidate who has the most to offer Arabs.
The run-off is likely to be between Barak and Netanyahu.
"I'm not in anyone's pocket," he said in a veiled warning to Barak, whose Labor Party has traditionally received the support of Arab voters. "What I really want is to draw attention to the problems of the Arab sector."
Bishara, a lawmaker who heads the largest Arab slate in Israel's parliament, has been fighting for Arab equality for most of his adult life.
As a 19-year-old university student in Haifa in 1976, Bishara organized Arab villages to hold a one-day protest of land confiscation.
That led to violent clashes with Israeli troops that left six Arabs dead and a legacy of annual Land Day protests that rally thousands of Aabs every year.
Bishara said his electoral bid would bolster confidence and increase the Arab vote.
"They've never had a reason to vote because no one ever care about their issues," he said.
Written by Dafna Linzer
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