Arab neighbourhoods in Israel suffer from a lack of investment, but that is slowly changing
to spot the Jewish and Arab neighbourhoods in Ramle, one of Israel’s few “mixed” cities. The Jewish ones consist mainly of tall, fairly new apartment buildings, with neat pavements. Arab areas, clustered around the city’s old centre, are haphazard and dilapidated. Naif Abu-Swiss, an independent city councillor, insists that things are changing.
In recent years, though, a big shift has been under way. In a poll in March, 87% of Israeli Arabs said they would like to see an Arab party join the ruling coalition. The same poll found that those who considered themselves “Arab-Israeli” outnumbered those who preferred to identify themselves as “Palestinian” or “Palestinian-Israeli”.
In 2015 the Likud government passed a five-year plan to spend an extra 15bn shekels in ways that might help Arabs. This was meant mainly to help Arab local authorities which were planning new neighbourhoods and industrial zones in their jurisdiction and to improve education and job prospects. Arab politicians grumble that these projects are happening too slowly, but admit that the money is making a difference.
Despite this, Mr Frej, a member of a predominantly Jewish left-wing party, Meretz, insists that “to serve the interests of the Arab community, we need to be in coalitions and government. I’m prepared to sit with anyone, except outright racists, to achieve that.” However, Mr Netanyahu’s propaganda works. Even Benny Gantz, leader of Blue and White, the main opposition party, will not say in public that he is prepared to include Arab parties in his coalition if he wins.
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