The Joint Arab List plans to commandeer Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim in the last election that Arabs were heading to the polls "in droves" to encourage their own voters on the April 9 election.
Netanyahu's election-day message to his right-wing voter base became a defining moment of the 2015 election, drawing criticism and accusations of racism from across the globe. Netanyahu, who won the election, later apologized.
Joint Arab List Chairman Ayman Odeh said he plans to use Netanyahu's phrase, which has become an iconic and sometimes ironic part of the language in Israel, to whip up turnout amongst the Arab minority in the April 9 vote.
"Arabs are not going to forget Netanyahu's incitement," Odeh told Reuters. "Netanyahu benefited from the slogan the first time around. Now it is our turn to benefit."
Netanyahu is seeking a fifth term in office. If successful, he will become Israel's longest-serving prime minister.
The party will run the slogan in Arabic and Hebrew, said Odeh, whose faction holds currently holds 13 of the 120 Knesset seats.
Odeh said that the Joint Arab List MKs' main task will be to convince potential voters that their participation can effect real change.
So far polls show Netanyahu's Likud will be the largest party in parliament with around 30 seats. The Joint Arab List, a coalition of four Arab parties, could split, with each faction winning about six seats.
Odeh said a key campaign issue will be Israel's nation-state law. The bill's supporters said it was largely symbolic and Netanyahu said it was needed to fend of Palestinian challenges to Jewish self-determination.
"I can argue that if we had only voted in greater numbers, we would have been able to block the law," Odeh said. "They simply wouldn't be able to ignore us."
