Word: arabism
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...miracle'. Taken together, ultra-orthodox parties will still be the largest block in Jerusalem's city council. In order to win over the large religious Zionist vote, Barkat, a former city councilman, swung from the center to the far right, campaigning on promises to build more Jewish settlements in Arab East Jerusalem. U.S. administrations and the international community have repeatedly said that these settlements are an obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians...
Gaydamak's advisers recently met with Walid Dajani, a hotel manager from a prominent Old City family. Dajani told TIME, "I said I would give Gaydamak the balcony of my hotel to speak to us Arabs, but only if he came out against Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem. His advisers never came back." Dajani adds, "They know that any Jewish candidate who said those things would have no chance of winning on the Jewish side." Two days before the election, Gaydamak offered to halt the demolition of Arab houses in East Jerusalem...
Gaydamak's craziest scheme may be relying on the Arab vote. Not only does he risk losing his Beitar supporters, but traditionally, Jerusalem's Arabs seldom vote. Over the decades, the Palestinian leadership has urged Arabs to boycott municipal elections, claiming that it would validate Israel's "illegal" claim to the city. But the city's Arabs lose everything by refusing to vote. Without anyone lobbying for them on the city council, Arabs receive just one-tenth of municipal services - they have fewer schools, clinics, playgrounds and road repair - despite paying taxes...
...busy Salah Eddin Street, Arab opinion is sharply divided. Says Ahmed Ali, a teacher: "Of course I'll boycott, because Israelis annexed the city by force." But as Ahmed Fawzi, a grocer beside Damascus Gate, says, "The only way to get something from Israel is to fight them from within, joining them. We should go to the municipality and scream and spit in their faces, if that's what it takes...
...Arab side of town, election day usually starts with a sickening ritual: the few brave voters who appear are beaten up by Palestinian militants. Word of the attacks then spreads swiftly around East Jerusalem, and other Arabs stay away. Beitar's fans may be right: the millions of shekels lavished on the Arab vote may be wasted, as they could be spent on new star players for Gaydamak's luckless team. Meanwhile, Jerusalem, the capital of three monotheistic faiths, could drift toward religious intolerance. As columnist Tom Segev writes glumly in the newspaper Haaretz, "All that is left...