The whip of the ruling far-right coalition said Saturday, December 10, that he prefers Arab citizens of Israel not vote in national elections. “Ninety-five percent of them vote for the Joint List,” Knesset member David Bitan (Likud) told the audience at a public event in Mevasseret Zion, near Jerusalem. Bitan was asked for his opinion on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s use of social media, including his Election Day video in which he called on his supporters to vote, warning that the “the Arabs are going to the polls in droves.” Bitan, who is considered close to Netanyahu, said: “I’d rather the Arabs won’t go to the polls in droves, and won’t come to the polls at all.”

Netanyahu’s infamous Facebook message on Election Day for the 20th Knesset, March 17, 2015, in which he called on his supporters to vote, warning that the “the Arabs are going to the polls in droves.”

The head of the Joint List, MK Ayman Odeh (Hadash), called Bitan “Netanyahu’s mouthpiece” and said he “continues to prove that all this leadership has to offer is explicit racism and cheap populism.” Odeh added “[Bitan’s] pathetic daily comments express the prime minister’s fear of our growing political power.”

Joint List MK Yousef Jabareen (Hadash) called for Bitan to be fired for his “racist remarks.” “How would the political establishment in France had responded if a senior politician said he’d rather Jews not show up in the polls?” he said.  “David Bitan says what Netanyahu thinks,” Meretz lawmaker Issawi Frej said. “This is the true face of a government that isn’t interested in democracy… a state in which suffrage and freedom of expression will be reserved only to loyal Jews who can recite King Bibi’s slogans.”

A recent poll by Channel 2 found that in the event of new national election, the Joint List would become Israel’s third strongest parliamentary fraction with 13 Knesset seats, after Netanyahu’s Likud and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party.