Israel’s first Arab justice slams Netanyahu’s warnings about Arab votes

Former Supreme Court justice Salim Joubran lashes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s election campaign warnings that rival Benny Gantz will form a coalition with Arab votes.

“The prime minister’s statements are unnecessary and unfortunate, and deeply wound all the country’s Arab citizens,” Joubran, the first Arab Israeli to serve as a permanent justice on the country’s top court, says in an Israel Radio interview.

Joubran served on the Supreme Court from 2004 to 2017. He was also the first Arab Israeli to chair the Central Elections Committee.

“I expected [better] from the prime minister, even if he feels the pressure” of an electoral challenge, Joubran says in the interview. “And I can understand that [pressure]. He faces a challenge from a group of people who served the country, in a new party, and he falls back on the Arab issue. ‘The Arabs are turning out in droves,'” Joubran adds, recalling Netanyahu’s incorrect 2015 assertion that Arab citizens were voting in unusually high numbers.

“Why? What happened? The Arabs are citizens of this country. For the time being at least, we’re equal citizens in all respects. We can vote, run for office, and even unite in a ‘preventative bloc’ [in favor of one candidate over another]. This is all legitimate, there’s nothing wrong with it,” Joubran insists.

He insists “you can’t ignore 1.8 million Arab citizens who have every right to organize in parties that represent their interests. Why is this constantly coming up? Folks, stop it.”