Election Note: If There is a National Unity Government, the Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset Will Be an Arab

Update:  this post was written before actual votes had been counted, when exit polling suggested a tie. Since then the vote has gone more heavily to Likud, though a Unity Government remains a possibility. The Joint List now seems likely to get 14 seats however, one more than suggested below.

Despite Netanyahu's rush to declare victory, the ultimate shape of the next Israeli government  is far from clear. If the exit poll indications are borne out, with the two big parties tied at 27 seats each, Netanyahu will have a better prospect of forming a coalition than Herzog, but it would still be one with a narrow majority. Though neither Likud nor the Zionist Union want it, there may be pressure to form a National Unity Government around the two big parties. In fact, there already is pressure: Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has said he will urge them to do so, and while the Israeli President is largely powerless, he is the person who decides who will get the chance to form a government.

And if the two big parties form a unity government, then the Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset will be the head of the third biggest bloc.

And for the first time in Israeli history, that will be an Israeli Arab: Ayman Oudeh of the United List. The Arab vote, though some 20% of the population in Israel proper (within the Green Line)  has usually been divided among several Arab parties and the far left joint Jewish-Arab Hadash (and many don't vote).

This year they ran united under Oudeh's leadership, and are the third biggest bloc (if the exit poll forecasts don't shift) with 13 seats. Ironic given Netanyahu's last-ditch warnings about the dangers of the Arab vote.

Lisa Goldman has a profile of Oudeh and his innovative, inclusive campaign: "Ayman Oudeh has already Won Israel's Election."

Arab MK Ahmed Tibi's Voting Suspended After Lampoon, Bilingual Double Entendre

Ahmed Tibi, an Arab Israeli member of the Israeli Knesset, had his privileges suspended for a day for a poem he recited on the floor of the Knesset. He was lampooning a member from the rightwing Yisrael Beitenu  Party who had spilled water on another member. Ha'aretz provides an English translation of Tibi's rather forced poem, which he recited in Hebrew. The objection is that, after considerable and labored effort, he manages to conclude with the Hebrew words "a glass of madness," Kos Amok. As anyone who knows Arabic knows, that sounds almost identical to the most obscene (and arguably the most common) Arabic insult, involving one's mother's anatomy. Since the Arabic obscenity is also well-known (and often used) in Israeli Hebrew, the double entendre stirred up a fuss. Someday I may work up the courage to discuss the remarkably versatile vocabulary of cursing and obscenity in Arabic, but for now I will merely point out what this otherwise perhaps opaque controversy is really all about. Tibi reading his poem in Hebrew follows (remember, those last two words are Hebrew, not Arabic, which would be offensive.)

Multiple Stories on Arab Women's Roles Today, From All Along the Spectrum

As I'm still busy clearing my desk for the banquet tonight and the Annual Conference tomorrow, I thought I'd do a lengthy portmanteau list of links to a number of recent stories, from just about every angle imaginable, about the changing and uncertain roles of women in the age of Arab revolution. Barring something that can't be ignored, this may be my last post till Friday, so I've given you a lot to read.

Women have played a major role in the Arab Revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt at least, and with the emerging political strength of Islamist parties Arab feminists are trying to make their voices heard. So are female Islamists. When I say these stories range widely, I literally mean they range from a candidate who wears niqab (the full veil covering the whole face) to the first Arabic magazine to run an Arab woman in a bikini on the cover.

• We'll start with Egyptian politics. The Jerusalem Post recently addressed the question. As they note, one Islamic scholar and self-proclaimed Presidential candidate, Hazem Salah Abu Isma‘il,has been saying he would impose Islamic dress on women and arrest any woman wearing a bikini. Though he has had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, they have distanced themselves from his candidacy.

• Indefatigable Egyptian blogger Zeinobia recently did her own roundup of women in the Egyptian Parliamentary elections which I'm going to quote for several items; she encouragingly calls her post "#1," so I hope there will be many. She begins with a poster from the Salafi Al-Nour Party shown at left. Now, Al-Nour attracts those Islamists who feel that the Muslim Brotherhood is way too liberal and permissive. As Zeinobia notes, Al-Nour held a conference on women at which all the speakers were men. It's that kind of party. (Not a partying kind of party, in other words.) Though they don't much approve of women in politics and such, the law says party lists have to have a certain minimum number of women candidates. Okay, so Al-Nour has women candidates. According to this political poster, one of them in this district is apparently a rose. (Bottom row, center.) Not only is she last on the list, they published a picture of a rose rather than show her face

• Somewhat related perhaps, Zeinobia also mentions that a candidate named Bahia Mohammed has become the first woman wearing full niqab to register as a candidate. As this longer account notes, she has her husband's permission. She's running as an independent, not for one of the religious parties.

• Shifting towards the more liberal side of the spectrum, the old and historically secularist Wafd Party doesn't put a rose on its poster, it puts the actual candidate (right), but since she's an attractive candidate and also blonde, that has had its own impact. Nihal ‘Ahadi is apparently drawing insulting comment through social media and is being labeled a member of the former ruling party.

• Meanwhile, an Egyptian woman has started a Facebook page urging men, if they're so convinced women should wear hijab, to try it themselves. (Another account here.)  Unfortunately the Global Voices links don't currently work for the Facebook pages, from either their English or their Arabic posts.

• While we're still in  Egypt, try fitting this into the links above: Egypt now has ten television channels devoted to nothing but belly-dancing videos. (Story is from Lebanon's Al-Akhbar.) And people expect the Islamist to do well in the elections. You square that circle for me if you can.

• While, in Egypt, candidate Abu Isma‘il is promising to arrest any woman wearing a bikini,a lot of the Internet is abuzz with the story that, for the first time (I haven't checked this against archives from the pre-Islamist era, so earlier instances may be posted to the comments), an Arabic magazine has put an Arab woman model on their cover wearing a bikini. Admittedly, my link is to that paragon of British journalism, The Times Daily Mail, but it appears elsewhere as well. Now it seems that model Huda Naccache is in fact an Israeli Arab from Haifa, 22, and not only that, has been chosen as Miss Israel for the "Miss Earth" contest. Now I've heard of Miss World and even blogged about the Arab-American who was Miss USA for the Miss Universe contest, who was rather improbably labeled a Hizbullah mole despite her swimsuit pictures. I've never heard of the "Miss Earth" contest. (If there's a Miss Earth as well as a Miss World and a Miss Universe, is there a Miss Solar System?) Lilac is an Arabic magazine published in Israel and circulated in the Palestinian Authority (not Gaza I suspect, at least this issue), and Jordan. Israeli bloggers are treating this from a different angle, arguing that Israel is hardly an "apartheid" state if they chose a Miss Israel who is an Arab. She's an Israeli Arab from Haifa, of course, not from the occupied territories. Purely for educational/anthropological/historical/cultural purposes, as I also did with Miss Universe candidate Rima Fakih, I reproduce as a cultural artifact with no prurient intent whatsoever, the cover of Lilac at left. If you want more pictures, you'll have to click through to the Daily Mail.

What's the moral or lesson of all these anecdotal issues? None I can think of, except that, as the Chinese say, women hold up half the sky. Arab men sometimes underrate that, and old stereotypes die hard. Are ten belly-dancing channels a step forward, or backward? Is Huda Naccache in a bikini a revolutionary or a stereotype, and whichever, how does she relate to the candidate for Parliament in niqab? As the father of a daughter, though not one who will grow up in the Arab world now emerging, I'm not sure, but there are many very different and seemingly incongruous things going on at once here.

Wave of Attacks on Religious Sites

Judaism, Christianity,and Islam all preach tolerance,but in the pressures of the Middle East all at least occasionally fail to practice it. Over just the past few days we've seen a surge of attacks against places of worship, perhaps the most provocative type of attack. Variously:0

•  Muslims and Copts have clashed in Aswan Governorate after a reported attack on a Coptic church and other Coptic-owned properties in the village of Marinab in Upper Egypt;

• Prime Minister Netanyahu has expressed his outrage after a mosque in the Israeli Arab village of Tuba-Zangariya in Upper Galilee was burned, by Jewish extremists who scrawled "price tag"on the walls,suggesting they may be West Bank settlers who've vowed to exact a "price tag" for restrictions on the settlements. Similar  attacks have occurred in the Occupied West Bank, but this is the first in Israel proper, in Galilee..

•  I noted early today that David Gerbi,who had hoped to restore the Synagogue in Tripoli, Libya, says he has been blocked by threats and locked doors despite being welcomed by the National Transitional Council.

None of these appear at this time to be acts of governments, but they are hardly good signs.

It's Ha'aretz' Question, Not Mine

But it's an interesting one: Why Do Fewer Arab Women Have Jobs in Israel Than in Saudi Arabia?

Jerusalem Powder Keg

There's a fine line between the daily tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem and the actions that set the tinderbox alight. Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000 rather obviously began the second intifada, though that is easier to perceive in retrospect than it may have been at the time. Things are growing more and more tense in Jerusalem in the past couple of days, following the events of last Friday, and there are warnings of a possible third intifada.

Yesterday, Israel arrested Sheikh Ra'id Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel's Northern Branch. A court soon released him, but banned him from Jerusalem for 30 days.

A little background is in order. The Islamic Movement of Israel is an Islamist movement among Israeli Arabs, and its northern branch is by far the most important because most of Israel's Arab citizen population live in Galilee, particularly in Nazareth and Umm al-Fahm. Ra'id Salah is a former mayor of Umm al-Fahm.

He's not exactly a poster child for coexistence: Israel has accused him of links to Hamas, and he's said some outrageous things about the Western Wall having no links to Judaism, etc. But the point is, he's an Israeli citizen, a former elected official within Israel within the Green Line, and thus he's not usually treated like a resident of the occupied territories. That makes him a lightning rod for not just Palestinians in the territories and East Jerusalem, but for Israeli Arabs as well.

Now, he was rather clearly rabble-rousing in the current tensions over the Haram al-Sharif/Har ha-Bayit. But as a lightning rod, the arrest (though subsequently downgraded to a ban on visiting Jerusalem for 30 days), escalates an already tense situation.

I'm not sure whether the Netanyahu government is actually seeking to ignite a flashpoint here, or simply blundering into one, but this could indeed be the flashpoint for a third intifada, and also a deepening of tensions within pre-1967 Israel itself, even if Salah is way more radical than most Israeli Arabs. More to the point, it escalates tensions within Green Line Israel, between the Jewish and Arab Israeli citizenry, and it must always be remembered that Israeli Arabs constitute about a fifth of the population within then pre-1967 borders, and vote.