Israeli Arab Drops Out, Aiding Labor

Israel’s first Arab candidate for prime minister pulled out of the race Saturday in a move that could bring front-runner Ehud Barak a step closer to outright victory in Monday’s national elections.

Azmi Bishara, an Israeli Arab member of parliament and former philosophy professor, said he was withdrawing because he believed that remaining a candidate would hurt the chances that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be ousted. But he stopped short of endorsing Barak, leader of the opposition Labor Party, whom polls have shown to be within reach of gaining a majority of the vote Monday.

Surveys have shown Barak to have an advantage of 6 to 12 percentage points over Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party, in a five-way contest that also includes Center Party candidate Yitzhak Mordechai and hard-liner Zeev Binyamin Begin. Mordechai and Begin have stayed in the race so far but have been holding frequent consultations with their advisors, and either could decide to withdraw today.

Bishara, 42, an Arab Christian from Nazareth, entered the race in March to draw attention to the problems of Israel’s 1 million Arab citizens, long disadvantaged in the Jewish state.

He said Saturday that he had done that.

“Most of the goals we set for ourselves have been achieved,” Bishara told a news conference in Nazareth, Israel’s largest Arab city.

Bishara said that after hours of discussions with aides to Barak, he was convinced that the Labor Party leader has a “genuine commitment” to helping Israeli Arabs and, if elected, would try to address several key concerns. These include increased funding for education and housing, a halt to confiscation of Arab land, and the provision of public services to dozens of Arab villages that lack basic services.

Polls have indicated that if Bishara had stayed in the race, he would have taken 2% to 3% of the vote. It is a measure of how close the election has become that his withdrawal is seen as holding the potential to tip the balance to Barak.

Pollster Hanoch Smith declared that Bishara’s decision makes it “a little more likely” that Barak will win more than 50% of the votes, thus rendering a second round of voting for prime minister unnecessary.