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Muhammad Miari is keeping a low profile following threats on his life. One of six Arab Knesset members, Miari has not been home for several days, nor has he come to the Knesset.

Israel Police's elite International and Serious Crimes Unit (ISCU) began a criminal investigation Monday into former MKs Muhammad Miari and Muhammad Kanan, who recently traveled together with current Balad MKs Azmi Bishara, Jamal Zahalka and Wasal Taha to Syria and Lebanon.

This year will be no exception. Despite months of talk about political unity, the Arab vote is more split than ever, with the three Arab-oriented parties feuding and votes floating toward the \"Zionist\" left Labor and Meretz and even toward the Likud. And despite a clear thumbs-up from the fundamentalist Islamic Movement for Muslims to participate in the elections, insiders say the Democratic Front, the PLP and the Arab Democratic Party will be lucky even to retain the total of six seats they won in 1988. Then, four went to the Democratic Front (two of whose MKs were Jewish and one of whom, Charlie Biton, broke away in mid-term) and one each to Miari and Darawshe. About 40 percent of the Arab vote went to the Zionist parties. And many votes went to waste because the Arab parties did not come to any surplus-votes agreement. \"[Muhammad Miari] thought he could get away with raising a flag and not doing any work,\" says [Al-Sinara]'s [Lutfi Mashour]. Samih al-Qasem, editor of Nazareth's other independent weekly, Kul al-Arab, adds that Arab voters \"first and foremost want to be Israeli. Secondly, they want to improve the economy of the Arab sector. They're not interested in the ideology of Miari or the Democratic Front.\" What Arab politicians fear most is that many disillusioned Arabs simply won't vote. Still more may cast their ballot for the Zionist parties, which have worked hard in their own right to increase their popularity among Arabs. Nawaf Massalha, who has a safe seat on Labor's list at No. 20, reckons that Arab votes could account for \"up to three Labor seats,\" and perhaps one more for Meretz. David Mena, head of the Likud's campaign in the Arab community, says his party did not leave a stone unturned, even holding first- time campaign visits to all-Muslim and usually hostile towns such as Majd al-Krum and Tira. The pitch: that only the Likud can bring peace and prosperity.

When the Likud Central Committee was debating the bill on direct election of the prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir opposed the legislation on the grounds that Israel's Arab citizens would deny power to his Likud by voting en masse for the Labor candidate, while retaining the right to vote for third-party Knesset lists. But, even without electoral reform, the 390,000 Arab voters could still tilt the balance toward Labor and its allies of the left; they could deprive the right of a decisive 61 seats in the 120- member Knesset on June 23 - whether or not Yitzhak Rabin broke the traditional taboo against making coalition deals with \"non- Zionist\" parties. In the February 19 leadership primary, [Yisrael Kessar] won 43.15 percent of the 9,782 Arab votes to Shimon Peres's 38.14 percent, Rabin's 17.49 percent and Ora Namir's 1.08 percent. The turnout among Arab party members was 82 percent, compared with an overall poll of 70 percent. The Arabs are also open to the argument that only by voting Labor can they get rid of the Likud. [Sammy Smooha] estimates that \"if the Arabs see that 1992 is a critical election, Labor could keep its 17.2 percent, or even increase it, despite Rabin.\" Both project themselves as candidates for a Rabin coalition. The Arab list is an alliance of Abd al-Wahab Darawshe's Arab Democratic Party, Muhammad Miari's Progressive List for Peace and various independents. Darawshe and Miari each won one seat last time. Their list claims the support of 15-20 Arab mayors.