As a neighbor-not-Bibi arrives on the Arab street: While Netanyahu now presents voters with a friendly face, the common focus is mainly on him and pulls out his statements from the past • Opinion
Shining over the wadi
Photo:
Michelle dot com
If there is one salient feature of the 2021 election campaign on the Arab street, it is the images of Prime Minister Netanyahu that are experienced in all Arab localities, including cities such as Nazareth, Rahat and Umm al-Fahm.
Unlike previous years, this time the Likud chose a different but smart strategy: Arab election propaganda does not attack the joint list and does not send arrows at Arab Knesset members.
With the exception of a few interviews with Likud ministers in the media, this time you will hardly hear from the Likud that the Arabs are "fifth corps" or "supporters of terrorism" or "denying Israel the right to exist as a Jewish state."
On the contrary, the Prime Minister rarely mentions the Arab Knesset members.
On Mansour Abbas he says, "he is my competitor."
Where did the incitement of yesteryear go?
The face that Netanyahu presents to the Arab voter in the 2021 elections is friendly.
So friendly that in the ads and on the billboards, his full name (Benjamin Netanyahu) disappears in favor of the popular nickname "Abu Yair", which has become a real slang.
And it proves itself.
Netanyahu makes sure to come and be photographed in the north and south, and even in the poorest village in Israel, Jisr a-Zarqa, where he went for a walk one weekend and posed for pictures with young people shouting at him, "Abu Yair!"
And together with Netanyahu, the "yes-bibi-no-bibi" debate also entered the Arabic election discourse.
The joint list campaign focuses almost exclusively on it, and the whole thing strives to refresh the memory of the voters in relation to Dr. Bibi and Abu Yair. Statements and statements of the past are extracted, especially "Arabs move in quantities to the polls" Mansour Abbas and Netanyahu seem to have gained prominence after Abbas refused to sign a surplus agreement with the joint list, and its people now claim that "an order has been received from Netanyahu". Or Tibi or Bibi.
On the sidewalk opposite, that is, in the Islamic movement, they are trying to convey security, which may produce complacency that will harm their chances of passing the blocking percentage.
Despite this, the RAAM party is confident that its elected representatives will decide the identity of the next prime minister, and will be able to impose benefits and promises on him. In the videos they post, the members of the joint are shown not only as those who will work to promote LGBT rights, but as those who will support the reduction of the powers of the Sharia courts and surrogacy laws.
These publications go viral and spread like wildfire, with the emphasis on RAAM's desire to "be a conservative society."
Together they respond with ridicule: both for the temptation to believe Netanyahu that "he will use you and throw away," and for the vision of conservative society, which in the party's opinion is not suitable for contemporary Arab society.
Prepare-Bibi-not-Bibi came to the Arab street.
He has split the common, and now he is forcing its players to put up competing visions on the character of Arab society.
What did you do, Abu Yair?
