WHAT KIND OF COUNTRY?:

The campaign against Arab voters is not new. It has always been an oft-subsumed part of Israeli elections. If, however, it was long considered beyond the pale (see the prohibition against racist candidates in the wake of the Meir Kahane phenomenon in the 1980s), it has gathered momentum and considerable traction during the past two decades. Avigdor Liberman unabashedly adopted the election slogan: "no loyalty, no citizenship" ten years ago. Netanyahu's infamous appeal to his supporters on election day in 2015 to go out to vote because "the Arabs are going to the polls in droves" continued this trend with impunity. Throughout the past year, the Likud has flirted openly with Kahane's successors in the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, providing them with that formal legitimacy that had eluded them previously. The ultra-nationalist Yemina party headed by Naftali Bennett contains anti-Arab provocateurs-turned-ministers (Bezalel Smotrich and Rafi Peretz) who spout hatred against non-Jews on a daily basis.

The greatest - and by far the most cynical - offender remains Netanyahu himself. Over the course of the last twelve months he has not missed an opportunity to demonize the elected representatives of Israel's Arab community, to question their loyalty, to drive a wedge between them and their voters, and to openly delegitimize them. In November, he went so far as to state that the Arab Members of the Knesset are "seeking to destroy the state". Nary has a day gone by without either he or one of his minions heaping abuse on the Arab citizens of the country. And then came the announcement of the Trump "deal of the century" with a clause intended to sanction the transfer of the entire triangle containing 300,000 residents to Palestinian hands (a revival of the transfer notion first raised by the late minister Rehavam Ze'evi).

Sadly, this noxious trend has been compounded by Netanyahu's mantra of the last few weeks: "It's either Bibi or Tibi" (a reference to Ahmed Tibi, one of the leaders of the Joint Arab List and a highly-regarded veteran parliamentarian). Benny Gantz and the Blue-White party, fearful of the effect of this barrage on soft-right voters, succumbed to the hate campaign and announced that he would not form a coalition with the Arab List, thus further fueling the rising ire in the Palestinian-Arab public.

The assault on Israel's Arab citizens is backfiring: at stake is not only the honor of an entire community, but also the value of equality of rights that lies at the core of any democratic society. That is why the anger it has evoked in large segments of this community - and among many Jewish voters who have refused to sit quietly as this campaign has progressed - is now being translated into a massive effort to increase turnout rates. The objective is to realize what Netanyahu fears the most: a high participation that can deny him and his cohorts another term.

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