Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas to target Arab voters

Party eyes Arab votes in areas where turnout is particularly low, even considering going door-to-door in certain areas to hand out pre-payed credit cards for food purchases

i24NEWS|09.28.22 | 09:55

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Israel’s ultra-Orthodox political Shas party said on Wednesday that it was launching a campaign to rally Arab voters, with a little over a month left before general elections in Israel.
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Shas intends to reach Arab communities defined as particularly disadvantaged, and promise prepaid credit cards for food purchases, a move already in place for the party's traditional voter base.
2 View gallery 
An Arab Israeli woman casts her ballot 
(Photo: Reuters)
Shas was  even considering going door-to-door in certain areas to deliver a letter of commitment for the credit cards in the hope of mobilizing voters in areas where the turnout to polls was expected to be particularly low.
It is not the first time the ultra-Orthodox party, led by Aryeh Deri, is appealing to the Arab sector for votes. When Deri headed the Interior Ministry, Shas campaigned in Arab cities where Deri had a good working relationship with the mayors.
The leftist Meretz party meanwhile said it would launch an awareness campaign in the coming weeks to increase the voting rate in the Arab sector.
2 View gallery 
Shas party candidates 
(Photo: Rafi Kotz)
Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party has also been reaching out to Arab voters, including in Arab language social media platforms.
The predominately Arab Joint List alliance, which traditionally wins the largest share of Arab votes, will contest the next elections as two separate factions: Hadash-Ta'al and Balad. After the Balad party quit the alliance, a move which is expected to further diminish Arab voter participation in the elections. 
According to polling, Balad will fail to win the minimum votes needed to cross the Knesset threshold.
A few weeks ahead of the November ballot, new polls show that opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing and religious block will win win 60 seats, still short of the 61 seat majority required to form a government.
Netanyahu has failed to establish a ruling coalition in the past four election cycles over three years.

Reprinted with permission from i24NEWS.

3Comments

3.

This actually makes some sense

The Chareidi parties actually do get a surprising number of votes from Arabs. The Arab parties try and outdo each other in their Israel bashing, demanding all sorts of things for the Palestinians, who are not Israeli citizens. The hard working Arab who just wants to have a decent job, put food on his tabel, raise his kids in a decent environment, and whose family has been Israeli citizens for 2 - 3 generations already, wants someone who will actually bring benefits to them, not someone who just blames Israel for their problems. Many of the constituents of the Chareidi parties are on the lower end of the socio economic scale, and these parties try and get more money and benefits to poorer families, and to families with lots of children. Many Arabs have this in common with the constituents of Shas. Many constituents of the chareid parties also did not serve in the IDF, like the Arabs who did not serve in the army. There are those who seek to make lack of army service a barrier to entry into many things, and the Arabs know that Shas will fight this. In short, there are some real reasons why Arabs do vote for the chareidi parties, and it only makes sense that the parties would court such votes.

Sam| 09.29.22

01

2.

nu, so how much?!

how much for a vote, and by extension, how much for a knesset seat?

shloime| 09.29.22

10

1.

Missing quotes from shas.....

....that they are doing this. But it is difficult not to believe when they buy all their other votes.

Eli| 09.28.22

30