The Sept. 22 speech of Prime Minister Yair Lapid to the UN General Assembly made headlines mostly because of the support he expressed vis-a-vis the two-state solution in the conflict with the Palestinians. The speech was targeting Israeli voters in general, ahead of the Nov. 1 elections, and Israeli Arab voters in particular.
Relating to the diversity of Israel’s population, Lapid said, “In the government which I lead, there are Arab ministers. There is an Arab party as a member of our coalition. We have Arab judges in our Supreme Court. Arab doctors saving lives in our hospitals. Israeli Arabs are not our enemies, they are our partners in life.”
The remarks by Lapid came on the backdrop of surveys predicting an especially low turnout of Israeli Arab voters. This situation greatly worries both the Arab parties and the “anyone-but-Netanyahu” bloc, headed by Lapid. He understands that without a normal voter turnout, if not an especially high turnout, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s road to the prime minister’s office is paved.
Thus, we must ask, what did Lapid seek to achieve here? Did he think that by mentioning the Palestinian issue alongside the two-state solution and a statement about Israeli Arab citizens he could fire up the Israeli Arab public and inspire folks to stream to the polls?
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