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CHAPTER 8 The PLO and the 1992 ElectionsA Skillful Participant? HILLEL FRISCH The Hebrew University ofJerusalem For the PLO, beset by internecine strife in the territories and the Likud's second mass settlement drive, the 1992 election campaign represented one ray of hope. Large-scale settlement confirmed the view prevalent in the PLO since 1984 that a government monopolized by the Likud presented the worst scenario for Palestinians. Fortunately for the PLO, factionalism within the Likud revolving around a Sepharadi leader pitted against the Likud's Ashkenazim, a theme in Israeli politics that the PLO always researched with a microscope and then magnified considerably, suggested that the Likud was really weakening, improving by default the prospects of a Labor government (Filastin al-Thawra 7June 1992). How then could the PLO participate from afar to ensure the change of government tlmt would dramatically curtail the settlement drive and possibly improve Palestinian prospects in tlle peace process? The PLO, the following article will attempt to argue, responded by making a qualitative change in its policy from past elections, preferring active participation in order to directly influence the vote for parties that could form the government rather than focusing exclusively on the Arab vote and the consolidation of an Arab electoral bloc. The change stemmed from radically different circumstances. Until the intifada at least, the Palestinians could only think defensively, defending the territories from Israeli statebuilding encroachment. From 1988, but particularly with the initiation of the Madrid peace talks, what government came to power could have an important impact on the fortunes of the peace process. Whether this involvement is one more indication of the PLO's willingness to recognize the State of Israel and its formal institutions, however, remains ambiguous. 177 > Home | TOC | Index 178 Frisch I. Government Formation and PLO Electoral Strategy Though PLO involvement in the Israeli electoral process dates back to the 1977 general elections when, for the first time, it urged Arab voters to vote for the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (DFPE), it was only in the 1984 elections that the PLO perceived that the Arab electorate could be utilized as a means to influence the formation of a government more suitable to Palestinian interests (Al-Ittihad 10 May 1977; Ha'aretz.13July 1984). The results of the 1984 eJections (which seemed to confirm the institutionalization ofa two-party system in Israel), and the formation ofthe national unity government in their wake, alerted the PLO to three seemingly uncontestable facts. First, in the stalemate that prevailed between the Likud and Labor and its respective allies, in which both shared fifty-four seats apiece, the institutionalization of the Arab voting bloc focused around predominantly Arab parties, such as the DFPE and the newly formed Progressive List for Peace (PU') , could in the future ensure a Labor government beholden to the Arab vote. Technically, the Arab voting bloc was short of the twenty thousand votes necessary to place a seventh member in the Knesset (Yanai 1990, 157). That would have given L'lbor the edge in coalition formation had Labor been able to overcome ideological reselvations concerning coalition with Arab parties to form a government of theJewish state. At the very least, the PLO felt that the institutionalization of an Arab voting bloc forced the Likud into a unity government. The formation of that type of government, and that was the third lesson the PLO learned, indeed mattered: The unity government reduced expenditures on settlement in the West Bank by nearly 80 per cent (Amnon Rubinstein, Ha'aretz.16ApriI1992). II. The 1988 Campaign: Endorsing the Zionist Center and Left-of-centel' Parties In his article on the 1988 elections, Lustick pointed to the growing number of Israeli Arabs in the past fifteen years who have voted for parties of integration as opposed to either establishment parties with selective spoils to distribute, or to nationalist non-Zionist parties (Luslick 1990, 120-21). Voters for those parties, including the newly formed Arab Democratic Party (ADP) , wanted to effectively influence policy by voting for parties that indicated clear positions on Palestinian national rights and equality in allocations between Jews and Arabs as well as a Iirm commiuncnt tojoining a Labor-led coalition. Augmenting the stl"ength of these parties was exactly the reasoning behind the PLO's call to Arab voters to vote for "parties ofpeace" in the 1988 elections: > Home | TOC | Index The PLO and the 1992 Elections-A Skillful Parlicipant? 179 The campaign to end the black Israeli occupation...

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