In Israel election, Palestinian citizens weigh fear against disillusionment

With polls at a knife’s edge, Palestinian citizens of Israel weigh principle against strategic voting in a system stacked against them.

How the Palestinian Israeli vote could reshape Israel's election

Occupied East Jerusalem – Laila Atamneh, 19, remembers her parents arguing at the dinner table every time Israel would hold an election.

Among the rare Palestinian Jerusalemites who are Israeli citizens and eligible to vote, her father would make the case for casting a ballot for an Arab-led electoral list. Her mother, by contrast, always abstained.

“She thinks it feeds into the idea that Israel is a democracy and Palestinians have the same rights here – only to get extremely humiliated, and then get one of the worst governments ever, and be surrounded by fascists,” said Atamneh, who hails from the neighbourhood of Beit Hanina.

On October 27, the 19-year-old will vote for the first time in Israel’s general election . She sees it as a responsibility to the millions of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, who will have no say in the next Israeli government but, she believes, bear the brunt of its occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

“I feel like I have to be these people’s voice,” said Atamneh. “Not that one person is really capable of that much – but if this gives them one percent hope, then I will do it.”

But Atamneh, who speaks Arabic, said she struggles to follow election coverage in Hebrew. “I personally feel excluded from everything, that we’re not even a part of the discussion,” she added. “It feels like none of the parties really address our generation of first-time Palestinian voters.”

Her mixed feelings capture the mood among Palestinian citizens of Israel – about a fifth of its population – ahead of the election. Few believe the system will serve them, but many fear another government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, who has overseen Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since 2023. Whether fear outweighs disillusion may decide a contest in which opinion polls suggest neither Netanyahu’s far-right-led bloc nor the self-styled Zionist opposition alliance will be able to govern without Ra’am and the Joint List, the two Arab-led parties.

And if no one can form a majority in the 120-seat Knesset, new elections will be called – keeping the current Netanyahu government, the most hard right in Israel’s history, in place until then.

Voting in the shadow of genocide

For Palestinian citizens of Israel, the animating force of the election is the acceleration of the hard-right assault on Palestinian rights, livelihoods and land in recent years.

“This election comes in the context of the genocide and the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and the harsh state policies towards Palestinians in Israel,” said As’ad Ghanem, a political scientist at the University of Haifa. “Palestinian citizens are really afraid. Their leadership is afraid, and this is real.”

For Hanan, a 36-year-old Palestinian Christian in a Druze village in the Galilee, it feels like the danger keeps coming closer to her doorstep.

Israeli settlers residing in illegal settlements in the West Bank last month tried to build an illegal outpost near Majd al-Krum, a Palestinian community in the Galilee. Then, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich released an AI-generated campaign video, in which a Palestinian from the West Bank frantically calls his relative in the Galilee to tell him that “the Jews are coming” to “do to you what they did to us”.

“Acts like these make me more afraid that the settlers will get worse and try to take more Palestinian land,” said Hanan. “This makes me want to vote more, and want to encourage other people to vote.”

‘We are under a real danger’

On September 23, Israel’s Central Elections Committee voted to disqualify Ra’am and the Joint List – an alliance of the Hadash, Balad and Ta’al parties – before the Supreme Court overturned the decisions. However, Balad’s Sami Abu Shehadeh withdrew his candidacy after the court indicated that a majority of justices supported upholding his disqualification.

Many Palestinians saw this as confirmation that the system is illegitimate; some said the attempt to disqualify the parties was further reason to mobilise either way. “We feel that we are under attack,” said Thabet Abu Rass, an expert on Arab-Jewish relations. “This is why we will cast our vote in a higher percentage.”

Voter turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel ranged from roughly 45 to 65 percent over the past five elections, reaching about 53 percent in the last polls in 2022. A Palestinian campaign operative cited surveys estimating about 62 percent of Palestinian citizens plan to vote next week; he said the aim is 70 to 75 percent, last reached in 1999, when a 75 percent Palestinian turnout helped PM Ehud Barak beat Netanyahu.

“We want to take it there,” he said, noting that a high turnout could keep smaller right-wing parties like Amcha Yisrael and The Reservists from clearing the 3.25 percent electoral threshold, shifting the entire balance of power.

The potential voter surge comes despite Palestinians’ limited, ossified choices.

“Every election, I tell myself that this year I’m not going to vote, because in reality we don’t feel that the Arab members do much,” said Hanan, bemoaning the lack of female representation or new political voices. “But in the end, I always go and vote, because I feel that maybe this time it will help.”

Despite people’s misgivings, Ghanem, the political scientist, dismissed the potential for a mass boycott as “a small point of view” by now. “We are under a real danger,” he said, “and we can contribute to ending this government’s term.”

Hanan said, “I know that voting is like admitting that there is an Israeli country, but it’s here. We can’t be all dreamy.”

The campaign operative added: “The only day that we have the right to be equal with the Jews … is the day of elections.”

Kingmakers without a seat at the table

The question is what Jewish Israeli parties in the anti-Netanyahu camp will do with the Arab-led lists. Opinion polls have consistently left both Zionist blocs short of the 61 seats needed to form a government – with the Arab parties making the difference.

On paper, that should make the Joint List and Ra’am kingmakers in the election. Yet opposition leader Naftali Bennett has said “The Arab parties are not Zionist, and therefore we will not rely on them.” Former army chief and potential prime ministerial candidate for the opposition Gadi Eisenkot has also expressed refusal to partner with the Arab parties, batting back attempts by Netanyahu to link him to them: “There is no Gadi [Eisenkot] without [Ahmad] Tibi” has become a frequent campaign slogan for Netanyahu, referring to the leader of Ta’al.

With the election at a knife’s edge, Palestinian voters must weigh principle against strategic voting in a system stacked against them. Initially, Atamneh said she considered voting tactically for Ra’am, a religiously conservative party with a Bedouin base in the Naqab, or even the Democrats, the liberal Zionist party – both likelier than the Joint List to join an anti-Netanyahu coalition. But she decided to vote for the Joint List on principle.

“While I can give in to a few things,” she said, “at the end of the day, I have to abide by morals and values I can’t let go of that easily. As Palestinians, we have to support Palestinians.”

In 2021, Ra’am made history by becoming the first Arab party to join an Israeli government when it entered a broad coalition that briefly unseated Netanyahu. But its pitch – that real gains and protections for Palestinian citizens come from sitting in a coalition government – has failed to persuade everyone.

Ghanem argued Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas “gives everything almost in order to get a little bit of budget … but we’re still Palestinians.”

However, Bedouin citizens are expected to largely support Ra’am, hoping it will join the ruling coalition like it did in 2021-2022. “Bedouin political discourse is a civic discourse rather than anything else,” said Abu Rass, with Bedouins focused on “daily survival” – hoping inclusion into the government can bring about “recognising their unrecognised villages, investing in education, and employment”.

‘Before ending the occupation, I want to save my people’

As Ghanem put it, Palestinian politics in Israel is “very weak because we don’t have consolidated political power internally in our community”.

But the political scientist believes the Joint List can make a serious impact on Israeli coalition building like in 1993, when Palestinian parties supported Yitzhak Rabin’s government from outside the cabinet. Wanting to replace Netanyahu, he said, “doesn’t mean that we have to be part of the coalition” – only part of “the whole bloc that wants to replace this racist government”.

Last week, Joint List leader Yousef Jabareen expressed a willingness to do just that under agreed-upon terms, including a path to Palestinian statehood and fighting organised crime and violence in Israel’s Palestinian communities.

Despite the campaign rhetoric saying otherwise, Abu Rass is optimistic the Eisenkot-led opposition will ultimately accept Arab parties as partners in some fashion.

“If the Arabs get 15, 16, 17 MKs [members of the Knesset], everybody will knock on the doors of the Arabs,” he said. “Publicly, they are not willing to say that … [but] I’m sure after the election, they will talk differently.”

An anti-Netanyahu coalition would not bring peace, said Abu Rass, who lost 38 relatives to Israeli attacks on Gaza, but it could be a brake on the worsening atrocities of the current government. “Before ending the occupation,” he added, “I want to save my people.”

Warning of another far-right government, Atamneh believes she has finally convinced her mother to vote.

“There’s bad, and then there’s extremely bad. We’d much rather have bad than extremely bad,” she said. “Even if I can prevent one death or one demolition order or anything like that, then it’s better than nothing.”

After a brief pause, she added: “But then you’re like – well, I’m just helping Israel reshape its image [as a democracy]. It feels like a dead end.”

民调结果难分伯仲，以色列的巴勒斯坦公民在一个对他们不利的制度下，权衡着原则与策略性投票之间的关系。

巴勒斯坦裔以色列人的投票将如何重塑以色列的选举格局

被占领的东耶路撒冷——19 岁的莱拉·阿塔姆内 (Laila Atamneh) 回忆说，每当以色列举行选举时，她的父母都会在餐桌上争吵。

在极少数拥有以色列公民身份并有资格投票的耶路撒冷巴勒斯坦人中，她的父亲会力主投票给阿拉伯人主导的候选人名单。而她的母亲则始终弃权。

“她认为这强化了这样一种观念：以色列是一个民主国家，巴勒斯坦人在这里享有同样的权利——结果却遭受了极大的羞辱，然后迎来了有史以来最糟糕的政府之一，并且被法西斯分子包围，”来自贝特哈尼纳社区的阿塔姆内说道。

10月27日，这位19岁的女孩将在以色列大选中首次投票。她认为这是她对被占领的西岸和加沙地带数百万巴勒斯坦人的责任，这些人对下一届以色列政府没有发言权，但她相信，他们承受着以色列占领、种族清洗和种族灭绝的重压。

“我觉得我必须成为这些人的代言人，”阿塔姆内说。“当然，一个人不可能做到那么多——但如果这能给他们带来哪怕百分之一的希望，我也会去做。”

但会说阿拉伯语的阿塔姆内表示，她很难理解希伯来语的选举报道。“我个人感觉被排除在外，我们甚至没有参与讨论，”她补充道，“感觉没有任何政党真正关注我们这一代巴勒斯坦新选民。”

她的复杂心情反映了以色列巴勒斯坦公民——约占以色列人口五分之一——在选举前的心情。很少有人相信现行体制会为他们服务，但许多人担心再次由本雅明·内塔尼亚胡领导的政府上台。内塔尼亚胡是以色列任期最长的总理，自2023年以来，他一直主导着以色列在加沙地带对巴勒斯坦人的种族灭绝战争。恐惧能否战胜失望，或许将决定这场选举的最终结果。民调显示，无论是内塔尼亚胡领导的极右翼阵营，还是自诩为“犹太复国主义”的反对​​派联盟，都离不开拉姆党和联合名单党这两个阿拉伯政党的支持。

如果无人能在拥有 120 个席位的以色列议会中组成多数派，则将举行新的选举——在此期间，现任内塔尼亚胡政府（以色列历史上最强硬的右翼政府）将继续执政。

在种族灭绝的阴影下投票

对于以色列的巴勒斯坦公民来说，此次选举的动因是近年来极右势力对巴勒斯坦人的权利、生计和土地的攻击愈演愈烈。

“这次选举是在西岸发生种族灭绝和种族清洗，以及以色列对巴勒斯坦人采取强硬政策的背景下进行的，”海法大学政治学家阿萨德·加内姆说。“巴勒斯坦公民真的很害怕。他们的领导层也很害怕，这是真的。”

对于居住在加利利德鲁兹村庄的36岁巴勒斯坦基督徒哈南来说，她感觉危险正一步步逼近家门口。

上个月，居住在西岸非法定居点的以色列定居者试图在加利利地区的巴勒斯坦社区马吉德·克鲁姆附近建造一个非法前哨站。随后，以色列极右翼财政部长贝扎莱尔·斯莫特里奇发布了一段人工智能生成的宣传视频，视频中一名来自西岸的巴勒斯坦人焦急地打电话给他在加利利的亲戚，告诉他“犹太人要来了”，要“像他们对待我们一样对待你们”。

“这样的行为让我更加担心定居者的行径会变本加厉，企图侵占更多巴勒斯坦土地，”哈南说。“这让我更加渴望投票，也想鼓励其他人去投票。”

“我们正面临真正的危险”

9月23日，以色列中央选举委员会投票决定取消拉姆党和联合名单（由哈达什党、巴拉德党和塔阿勒党组成的联盟）的参选资格，但最高法院推翻了这一决定。然而，在法院表示多数法官支持维持取消其参选资格的决定后，巴拉德党的萨米·阿布·谢哈德退出了竞选。

许多巴勒斯坦人认为这证实了该制度的非法性；一些人表示，试图取消各政党的资格反而促使他们更加积极地参与政治活动。“我们感到自己正遭受攻击，”阿拉伯-犹太关系专家塔比特·阿布·拉斯说，“这就是为什么我们会以更高的比例投票。”

过去五次选举中，以色列巴勒斯坦公民的投票率约为45%至65%，在2022年的最近一次选举中达到约53%。一位巴勒斯坦竞选人员援引调查数据称，约有62%的巴勒斯坦公民计划下周投票；他说，目标是70%至75%的投票率，上一次达到这一水平是在1999年，当时75%的巴勒斯坦投票率帮助总理埃胡德·巴拉克击败了内塔尼亚胡。

“我们希望实现这一目标，”他说道，并指出高投票率可能会阻止像“以色列之友”和“预备役者”这样的小型右翼政党跨越 3.25% 的选举门槛，从而改变整个权力平衡。

尽管巴勒斯坦人的选择有限且僵化，但潜在的选民激增现象依然存在。

“每次选举，我都告诉自己今年不去投票了，因为实际上我们感觉阿拉伯议员并没有做多少事，”哈南抱怨说，她不满于女性代表人数不足或缺乏新的政治声音。“但最终，我总是会去投票，因为我觉得也许这次会有帮助。”

尽管人们心存疑虑，但政治学家加内姆认为，大规模抵制目前只是“一种小题大做的观点”。他说：“我们正面临真正的危险，我们可以为结束本届政府的任期做出贡献。”

哈南说：“我知道投票就像承认以色列这个国家的存在，但它就在这里。我们不能一直活在幻想中。”

这位竞选工作人员补充道：“我们唯一有权与犹太人平等的日子……就是选举日。”

没有议席的造王者

问题在于，反内塔尼亚胡阵营中的犹太裔以色列政党将如何对待阿拉伯政党主导的候选人名单。民意调查始终显示，两大犹太复国主义阵营均未能获得组建政府所需的61个席位——阿拉伯政党的加入最终决定了席位归属。

从理论上讲，联合名单党和拉姆党应该会在选举中扮演关键的“造王者”角色。然而，反对党领袖纳夫塔利·贝内特表示：“阿拉伯政党并非犹太复国主义政党，因此我们不会依赖他们。”前陆军总司令、反对党潜在的总理候选人加迪·艾森科特也拒绝与阿拉伯政党合作，并反驳了内塔尼亚胡试图将他与这些政党联系起来的企图：“没有艾哈迈德·蒂比就没有加迪·艾森科特”已成为内塔尼亚胡竞选时的常用口号，他指的是塔阿勒党的领导人。

此次选举结果难分伯仲，巴勒斯坦选民必须在一个对他们不利的体制下，权衡原则与策略性投票。阿塔姆​​内表示，她最初曾考虑策略性地投票给拉姆党（Ra'am），这是一个宗教保守派政党，在内盖夫地区拥有贝都因人基础；或者甚至考虑投票给民主党（Democrats），这是一个自由派犹太复国主义政党——这两个政党都比联合名单更有可能加入反内塔尼亚胡联盟。但最终，她还是决定出于原则投票给联合名单。

“虽然有些事情我可以妥协，”她说，“但归根结底，我必须坚守我无法轻易放弃的道德和价值观。作为巴勒斯坦人，我们必须支持巴勒斯坦人。”

2021年，拉姆党创造了历史，成为首个加入以色列政府的阿拉伯政党。当时，该党加入了一个广泛的联合政府，短暂地将内塔尼亚胡赶下台。但拉姆党提出的“巴勒斯坦公民只有加入联合政府才能获得真正的利益和保障”这一理念，并未说服所有人。

加尼姆认为拉姆党领导人曼苏尔·阿巴斯“几乎为了获得一点预算而付出一切……但我们仍然是巴勒斯坦人。”

然而，贝都因公民预计会大多支持拉姆，希望它能像2021-2022年那样加入执政联盟。“贝都因人的政治话语是一种公民话语，而非其他任何东西，”阿布·拉斯说道，贝都因人专注于“日常生存”，他们希望加入政府能够带来“对其未被承认的村庄的承认、对教育和就业的投资”。

“在结束占领之前，我想先拯救我的人民。”

正如加内姆所说，以色列的巴勒斯坦政治“非常薄弱，因为我们的社群内部没有巩固的政治权力”。

但这位政治学家认为，联合名单能够像1993年那样，对以色列组建联合政府产生重大影响。当时，巴勒斯坦各党派在内阁之外支持了伊扎克·拉宾的政府。他表示，想要取代内塔尼亚胡“并不意味着我们必须加入联合政府”，而仅仅是“想要取代这个种族主义政府的整个阵营”的一部分。

上周，联合名单领导人优素福·贾巴林表示，他愿意在双方商定的条件下这样做，包括走上巴勒斯坦建国之路，以及打击以色列巴勒斯坦社区的有组织犯罪和暴力活动。

尽管竞选言论表明并非如此，但阿布·拉斯乐观地认为，艾森科特领导的反对派最终会以某种方式接受阿拉伯政党作为合作伙伴。

“如果阿拉伯人能赢得15、16、17个议员席位，所有人都会来敲阿拉伯人的门，”他说。“他们公开场合不愿意这么说……但我相信选举之后，他们的说法就会不一样了。”

阿布·拉斯在以色列对加沙的袭击中失去了38位亲人，他说，组建反内塔尼亚胡联盟并不能带来和平，但或许可以遏制现任政府日益恶化的暴行。“在结束占领之前，”他补充道，“我想先拯救我的人民。”

阿塔姆内警告说，极右翼政府可能会再次上台，她相信自己终于说服了母亲去投票。

“情况有糟糕和极其糟糕之分。我们宁愿情况糟糕，也不愿情况极其糟糕，”她说。“即使我只能阻止一条人命、一份拆迁令或其他类似的事情发生，也比什么都不做好。”

她停顿了一下，然后补充道：“但你转念一想——好吧，我只是在帮助以色列重塑其（民主国家的）形象。感觉就像走上了一条死路。”