Netanyahu spending more on Arabic-language Facebook posts than Arab parties combined
Likud woos Arab Israelis with promise to tackle crime wave, criticism of allegedly corrupt Arab parties; Lapid expected to visit Arab city of Nazareth next week
Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu has escalated his electioneering in Arab communities in the final weeks of the campaign, with statistics revealing a significant gap in expenditure on Arabic-language advertisements between Likud and the Arab parties.
According to statistics published by Channel 12 on Tuesday, between July 17 and October 14 Likud spent NIS 47,500 ($13,500) on Arabic-language Facebook ads, compared to NIS 24,100 ($6,900) spent by Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am party, and just NIS 3,460 by Ayman Odeh’s Hadash-Ta’al faction.
Likud, Israel’s largest party, has far more funds at its disposal than the smaller Arab parties.
The advertisements published by Likud focus on two strategic pillars. The first is the premise that the current crop of Arab party lawmakers in the Knesset are corrupt and self-interested, and the second promises the restoration of law and order in Arab Israeli society, a hot-button issue as the death toll from gun crime continues to rise year on year.
According to a Channel 12 report, unnamed right-wing groups have also embarked on an advertising blitz within Arab Israeli towns and cities, displaying posters highlighting the split-up of the former Joint List — a conglomeration that once comprised four Arab parties — as well as calling out the self-interest of the existing Arab members of Knesset.
As Netanyahu turns his attention to Arab communities — in an apparent effort to win voters and/or lower the Arab turnout by indicating that the community has nothing to fear from him — caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid is following suit with a visit to the northern city of Nazareth, the country’s largest Arab city, slated for next week.
The 2021 election saw Netanyahu making similar overtures to Arab society, with his campaign centering around the nickname he claimed to have received from his Arab supporters, “Abu Yair.”
He zipped between Arab towns, touting his government’s coronavirus vaccination campaign and a plan to combat crime in Arab communities, and heralded what he called the opportunity for a “new era” for Jewish-Arab relations in Israel.
The effort reaped some rewards, with support for Netanyahu’s Likud in Arab communities four, five, and even eight times higher than in the March 2020 election. But it amounted to very little in actual numbers — a result both of low turnout among the Arab public and of the fact that support for Likud, even multiplied, remains limited in these communities.
On election day 2015, Netanyahu infamously warned that Arabs were “coming out in droves” to the voting booths. He later apologized for the incendiary claim after accusations of racism and incitement.
Turnout in the entire Arab community was historically low in 2021 — just 44.6%. According to a poll published last month by the Kan public broadcaster, that figure is slated to drop even further on November 1.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
