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Poor showing By Gideon Levy Tags: Israel News Between Tyre and Gaza, there isn't a single Arab town or village on the coast, except Acre, which is actually a mixed city, and Jisr al-Zarqa. There's no other place like this. It may be the poorest and most wretched of all Israel's Arab towns, this fishing village on the banks of Nahal Taninim and the Mediterranean coast. Can there be a better location? But location isn't everything where there are years of poverty and ignorance, filthy streets and overcrowding, unemployment and crime-in stark contrast to the neighboring villas of Caesarea and the fish ponds of Kibbutz Ma?agan Michael, along the main road to Haifa. Jisr al-Zarqa is a tough place. And like other municipalities, it held elections last week. The voting public of Jisr isn't an easy one. Indeed, the celebration of democracy here is a disaster. Base instincts, hate, family rivalries -all rise to the surface on Election Day. Not for nothing did the current council head, Murad Amash, a former imam, say that the first thing he would do when reelected would be to try to help mend the town's wounded electoral system. He wasn't reelected. In the early morning hours, masses gathered at the polling stations. Each place threatened to erupt, every line of people threatened to turn into a brawl. Outside, hundreds of frightening men, shouting women, people in wheelchairs, and elderly residents who could barely stand on their legs were pushing each other, trying to get to the box that held the ballot slips. Even Barack Obama didn?t arouse this kind of election fervor. Advertisement About 12,000 people live in Jisr, and only 50 of them still fish. The town holds a socioeconomic ranking of 2 out of 10, according to an index established by the Central Bureau of Statistics. Jisr's average salary is roughly half the average Israeli salary. Only 30 percent of its students are eligible for matriculation. Four candidates were competing to head the local council, all from the Amash clan. In addition to it, there is only one other large clan in town, the Jerbans, but only the Amashes play the game. Murad, Iz al-Din, Hosni and Abdullah, each of them quite fearsome, competed in this last election. Only two, the incumbent council head and his predecessor, stood a chance of winning. Iz al-Din, a Meretz member who led the council for 12 years until he was forced to retire, eventually made a comeback, winning 48.9 percent of the vote, as opposed to his primary rival, Murad of the Islamic Movement, who won 48.5 percent. On Wednesday morning, after the vote count was completed, only a dozen votes separated the two candidates. Jisr al-Zarqa, Israel, 2008. Welcoming voters at the northern polling station, on the premises of a local elementary school, was a tennis court lacking a net, but full of scattered garbage-a donation from Baron Edmond Rothschild's Caesarea Fund for the "welfare of the children of Jisr al-Zarqa," according to a sign. Tennis hasn't been played here for a very long time, if ever. All of the polling stations in town were set up in its schools. All of them are pleasant structures, new and spacious-the silver linings in an otherwise poor town. Even the epidemic of new blue and white paint on the curbs doesn?t manage to conceal the neglect. The blue sea can be seen from the schoolyard. From Lebanon to Gaza, there are no other Arab settlements along this coast. All of them were cleared out by Israel in 1948, except for Jisr. Why? Because the villagers worked for the Jewish farmers in nearby Binyamina, who made an effort to keep them there so that they could help work the moshava?s fields during the war. But not a word about colonialism; democracy was being celebrated on this particular day. Everyone in Jisr knows who supported whom and why. Everyone was wearing the family colors, and everyone was identified with vote "contractors," who equipped them with the right ballot slip. MK Ahmed Tibi gave me contact information for Sheikh Musalah Jerban, one of Iz al-Din?s men. "One of them, Murad, slept all day, and the other, Iz al-Din, worked all day," he said. "That's not true," called out Zakarya, also a Jerban member, while waiting in line to vote. Musalah rushed to silence him. "Did you come to write about all the candidates, or just one?" Zakarya asked angrily. Shouting was heard from the polling station, and it sounded like a fight could break out any second. Who prevented whom from voting? Tough guys; everyone at polling station No. 8 is a tough guy. For a second, the place looked like the entrance to a particularly violence-prone Tel Aviv nightclub. Yussef Mutrakhi, a 46-year-old truck driver, expounded on the wonders of his candidate: "With God's help, Sheikh Murad will be elected. He is such a good man. He loves everyone. The street loves him, especially the children. He has helped a ton of people. He completed the sewage system and installed a channel for rainwater. He built kindergartens for children, fixed the roads and built sidewalks." "Imagine that in the last year, he made sure 160 young people went to university, in Israel and abroad. That's something we never had in the village. Until now, we've had only five lawyers and four doctors. Imagine 160 young people going to study. He really loves this village and the village loves him unbelievably. He participates in every funeral; he doesn?t discriminate. He comes to every house that?s in mourning, and to every wedding-he's with everyone in sorrow and happiness. He will continue, God willing." Musalah Jerban took us to meet his candidate, and on the way, served as a tour guide. Next to the ruins of a trailer, he told the story of the mother and her eight children who had lived in the home, which he said Murad destroyed. There hadn't been a road here before. Who paved it? Iz al-Din, of course. The black sewage flowing alongside the road didn?t exist during al-Din's time. "He would wake up at seven o'clock every morning and take a stroll, and if he saw this, he'd go crazy." In an olive-colored suit and a tie, in the yard of a school in the southern part of Jisr, looking like a rock star surrounded by fans, stood Iz al-Din Amash. A tall 51-year-old, he was council head for 12 years until he was forced to retire. What was his opinion of his rival, Murad?He is a religious man, anti-humanist, who hates Jews. What has he done? Destroyed, destroyed, destroyed. I am distinguished from him in that I am a member of a Zionist party. I'm not a Zionist, but I'm a member of a party that respects my nationality. "What motivated me to return to the council, as an organizational advisor and historian, are the children and the youth, the right to study and to live in peace and security, and the UN treaty. The council head abandoned the children and the youth. I called it the politicization of the education system. He fired an excellent school principal and appointed his cousin. Why are we so poor? I also investigated this issue. Our historical background isn't easy. The first thing I'll do is reorganize the council. I'm speaking to you as council head, not as a candidate, because it's clear I'll be elected. People here are scared to take their children outside. My model is [former New York mayor] Rudy Guiliani?s model. I won't succeed like he did, but I've learned his doctrine. We have no security officers. In Or Akiva, there is a security patrol, so why not here?" His cellular phone rang ceaselessly. The reporter for a Zichron Ya'akov paper also showed up. These were Iz al-Din Amash's 15 minutes of fame. "Would you happen to know where council head Murad Amash is right now?" I asked."I don't speak with him. But even if he were here, you wouldn't see him. He is 1.4 meters tall, like a barrel of salted fish. You'll find him in the sewage system. Every successful world leader has been tall. Charles de Gaulle, Bashar Assad, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton. The short ones, like King Abdullah of Jordan, are all failures. Success also has a psychological dimension." In a black suit without a tie, on a stone bench in the shade of the mosque, was council head Murad Amash with two young men next to him. People waved to him from every passing car. Amash looked like the polar opposite of his rival. He didn?t mince words or smile. He was rigid, slightly more impressive in his restraint than his opponent, about whom he wouldn't say a disparaging word. He is 36 and a member of the Islamic movement, but he was running on an independent ticket. He was proud of the sewage initiative ("We solved the problem"), the replacement of the water pipes, the new kindergartens and the road he paved, near which we sat. A Mifal Hapayis center, paid for by Israel's state lottery, will soon be built in town. What do you think of Iz al-Din? Amash: "It's hard to talk about your opponent. He is a member of the village, and I respect him. I inherited a council that was in complete collapse because of his defective operations." What will you do if you're elected? "First of all, I will unify the people?s hearts. These elections are damaging to the residents. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Who's missing? Haredi parties absent from Jerusalem coalition for first time in decades. 'Kavosh 2' Amid nuclear tensions, Iran says it successfully launched rocket.

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