After decades of boycotts, Palestinian citizens of Israel turned out to vote. It could shape what comes next

For decades, many Palestinian citizens of Israel stayed away from the polls, refusing to legitimize a system they say has oppressed their people, sidelined their concerns, and failed to represent them.

But this time felt different: after four years under the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, hundreds of thousands of Arab voters decided they could not afford to sit on the sidelines.

They turned out in record numbers – nearly 80% – to vote on Tuesday, compared with 53% in the last elections, according to the Mossawa Center, a civil society organization promoting equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel. That turnout gives Israel’s Arab parties unprecedented political sway with 19 seats in the 120-seat parliament.

That surge was driven by a number of interlocking reasons. First, rising violent crime in the Arab community – seen as the result of negligent policing. Second, an urgent desire to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and bring an end to his right-wing coalition, which includes hardline ministers such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. No one was left in any doubt about the strength of feeling towards Israel’s national security minister, in particular, on Tuesday night, as chants of “Ben-Gvir, go home” broke out at the election headquarters of Joint List, the major Arab political alliance, as it became clear just how well the party had done.

Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

Netanyahu’s coalition has overseen Israel’s devastating three-year war in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands, and a yearslong campaign of settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

“Our community wanted to bring down this criminal government, to change the grave reality caused by the policies of Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir,” said Dr. Ahmad Tibi, a leader of the Joint List.

Tibi has spent nearly three decades urging the Arab community to exercise their right to vote. Now, he said, that high turnout is already having an impact: keeping Netanyahu from forming another right-wing government.

Palestinian citizens of Israel – who make up 20% of the population – are descendants of Palestinians who were not expelled or forced to flee their homes when Israel was established in 1948. They were given citizenship but lived under military rule until 1966; many, though, feel that discrimination within Israeli society has continued to this day.

They also include Palestinians who were born before 1948, like Mohammed Abdelhai’s 80-year-old aunt.

On Tuesday, at her nephew’s urging, she became a first-time voter in the town of Tira, in central Israel.

“I told her we have to vote,” Abdelhai said. “The last government was very aggressive with us, so this time we need every vote,” he said.

The most important issue for him, he said, was a pervasive racism and lack of equality between Arabs and Jews in Israel.

“If we can make a change, we can make a change. Why not? Why stay stuck in the same place?”

Cyril Theophilos/CNN

The strength of the Arab vote also means that neither Netanyahu’s governing coalition nor the opposition bloc are expected to win an outright majority.

Now, Tibi’s Joint List, along with Ra’am, another Arab-majority party, appear to hold the balance of power.

Tibi said the Joint List is prepared to help the opposition form a minority government, led by former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. The Joint List would not join the government and would not seek any ministerial appointments in exchange – only a commitment to combat crime impacting the Arab community and stop the demolitions of Bedouin homes, which have risen under Netanyahu’s government.

“If they want us to help, we will be there in order to help … we want to support the candidate of the opposition.” Tibi said.

But doing so will require Eisenkot and his coalition to “be brave” in the face of Netanyahu’s condemnation of any attempt to form a government with the help of Israel’s Arab parties, he said.

That’s because the idea of forming a government with the support of Arab parties has become politically toxic in Israel, with a majority of Jewish voters opposed. Several opposition parties have also previously ruled out such an arrangement.

It remains unclear how much Eisenkot is willing to lean on the Arab parties for support. The only opposition party that supports doing that is the left-wing Democrats Party led by Yair Golan.

“We have an opportunity to form a change government in partnership with Israel’s Arab citizens,” Golan said on Wednesday. “Now we need courage. We need leadership. We need to stop being afraid and to start taking action.”

For Tibi, it’s more than fear holding some political leaders back.

“It’s the pure racism against 20% of the population, Arab citizens. We are a legitimate part of parliament. We are a legitimate part of the citizens,” he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently sought to delegitimize Arab voters and has repeatedly used the prospect of lawmakers from the Arab community sitting in government as a way to motivate his base to turn out and vote.

In September, the CEC approved a motion to ban Arab parties to run in the election – a decision that was overturned by the High Court.

As it became clear just how well Arab parties had polled on Wednesday, Netanyahu’s Likud issued a statement accusing them of “stealing the election.”

This was followed on Thursday by the chair of Israel’s Central Elections Committee (CEC) sending a letter to the head of Israel’s security agency, the Shin Bet, asking him to investigate allegations of foreign interference in the election aimed at boosting turnout among Arab voters.

In the letter, the CEC chair, Noam Sohlberg, admitted he could not attest to any of the suspicions, and Israeli police have said they have received nothing to back up the claims.

Arab party leaders say Likud’s attacks amount to incitement and have pledged to defend the election results. Mansour Abbas, Ra’am party leader, said he would cooperate with any investigation and Joint List chairman Yousef Jabareen said Netanyahu was “defeated” and “refuses to accept the voters’ decision.”

Many of the policies that have afflicted Palestinian citizens of Israel have been enacted under Ben-Gvir, the national security minister who was previously convicted of supporting terrorism and inciting anti-Arab racism.

On Tuesday, some residents in Arab-majority towns told CNN they left polling stations without voting because of intimidation from men supporting far-right Israeli parties like Ben-Gvir’s.

“People face high pressure – there was an old woman who could not stand the pressure, another one is pregnant who could not bear the situation and left … this is all because of racism,” said Taibeh resident Ulfat, who asked to be identified by her first name only.

Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images

From Tibi’s point of view, the higher turnout among Arab voters compared with the Jewish majority shows that Palestinian citizens are “willing to influence and take part” in Israeli politics.

“We are being blocked by the right and sometimes by the opposition. This is not a democracy. It’s an ethnic democracy. It’s a democracy for Jews,” he said.

That sense of exclusion was echoed by voters across Arab communities, many of whom said it is what pushed them to the polls this time.

Tira resident Munther Mansour, 60, has voted in the past, but this time he sees a real chance that his vote will count.

“We never took an interest in elections before. But the level of racism and changes in our day-to-day life forced people to go out and exercise their right,” he said.

“We belong to this country; we are part of the country. So we must exercise this right.”

几十年来，许多以色列巴勒斯坦公民一直远离投票站，拒绝承认一个他们认为压迫巴勒斯坦人民、忽视巴勒斯坦人民的诉求、未能代表巴勒斯坦人民的制度的合法性。

但这一次感觉不同：在以色列历史上最右翼的政府执政四年后，数十万阿拉伯选民决定他们不能再袖手旁观了。

据致力于促进以色列巴勒斯坦公民平等权利的民间社会组织莫萨瓦中心（Mossawa Center）称，周二的投票率接近80%，创历史新高，而上次选举的投票率仅为53%。如此高的投票率使以色列的阿拉伯政党获得了前所未有的政治影响力，在120个议席的议会中占据了19席。

这一波浪潮是由诸多相互交织的原因造成的。首先，阿拉伯社区暴力犯罪率上升——这被认为是警方疏忽大意的结果。其次，人们迫切希望罢免总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡，并结束他的右翼联盟，该联盟包括伊塔马尔·本-格维尔和贝扎莱尔·斯莫特里奇等强硬派部长。周二晚间，随着联合名单党（主要阿拉伯政治联盟）的选举结果大获全胜，在联合名单党的竞选总部爆发了“本-格维尔，回家”的呼声，人们对以色列国家安全部长本-格维尔的强烈不满之情溢于言表。

艾哈迈德·加拉布利/法新社/盖蒂图片社

内塔尼亚胡领导的联合政府主导了以色列在巴勒斯坦飞地加沙地带长达三年的毁灭性战争，这场战争造成数万人死亡；此外，以色列还在被占领的约旦河西岸地区发动了长达数年的定居者暴力活动。

“我们的社区想要推翻这个犯罪政府，改变内塔尼亚胡、斯莫特里奇和本-格维尔的政策造成的严峻现实，”联合名单党领导人艾哈迈德·蒂比博士说。

蒂比近三十年来一直敦促阿拉伯社群行使投票权。他表示，如今高投票率已经初见成效：阻止了内塔尼亚胡再次组建右翼政府。

以色列的巴勒斯坦公民占以色列人口的 20%，他们是 1948 年以色列建国时没有被驱逐或被迫逃离家园的巴勒斯坦人的后裔。他们获得了公民身份，但在 1966 年之前一直生活在军事统治之下；然而，许多人认为以色列社会内部的歧视一直延续至今。

他们中还包括 1948 年以前出生的巴勒斯坦人，例如穆罕默德·阿卜杜勒海 80 岁的姑姑。

周二，在侄子的敦促下，她在以色列中部城镇蒂拉首次投票。

阿卜杜勒海说：“我告诉她我们必须投票。上届政府对我们非常咄咄逼人，所以这次我们需要每一张选票。”

他说，对他而言最重要的问题是以色列普遍存在的种族主义以及阿拉伯人和犹太人之间缺乏平等。

“如果我们能做出改变，我们就能做出改变。为什么不呢？为什么要停滞不前呢？”

Cyril Theophilos/CNN

阿拉伯选民的强大支持也意味着，无论是内塔尼亚胡的执政联盟还是反对派联盟，都不太可能赢得绝对多数席位。

现在，蒂比领导的联合名单党，连同另一个阿拉伯人占多数的政党拉姆党，似乎掌握着权力平衡。

蒂比表示，联合名单党准备帮助反对派组建由前总参谋长加迪·艾森科特领导的少数派政府。联合名单党不会加入政府，也不会寻求任何部长职位作为交换——他们只承诺打击影响阿拉伯社区的犯罪活动，并停止拆除贝都因人房屋的行为。在内塔尼亚胡执政期间，贝都因人房屋的拆迁现象日益增多。

“如果他们需要我们帮忙，我们就会到场帮忙……我们想支持反对派候选人。”蒂比说道。

但他表示，要做到这一点，艾森科特和他的联盟必须“勇敢”，因为内塔尼亚胡谴责任何试图在以色列阿拉伯政党的帮助下组建政府的企图。

这是因为在以色列，与阿拉伯政党组建联合政府的想法已变得极具政治风险，大多数犹太选民都反对这种做法。此前，一些反对党也已明确表示不会接受这种安排。

目前尚不清楚艾森科特愿意在多大程度上依赖阿拉伯政党的支持。唯一支持这样做的反对党是亚伊尔·戈兰领导的左翼民主党。

戈兰周三表示：“我们有机会与以色列阿拉伯公民合作，组建一个变革型政府。现在我们需要勇气，需要领导力，需要停止恐惧，开始采取行动。”

蒂比认为，阻碍一些政治领导人的不仅仅是恐惧。

“这是对占人口20%的阿拉伯公民的赤裸裸的种族歧视。我们是议会的合法组成部分，我们是公民的合法组成部分，”他说。

以色列总理本杰明·内塔尼亚胡一直试图否定阿拉伯选民的合法性，并反复利用阿拉伯裔议员进入政府的前景来激励他的支持者出来投票。

9 月，中央选举委员会批准了一项动议，禁止阿拉伯政党参加选举——但这一决定被高等法院推翻。

周三，阿拉伯政党的民调结果逐渐明朗，内塔尼亚胡的利库德集团发表声明，指责他们“窃取了选举”。

随后，以色列中央选举委员会（CEC）主席于周四致信以色列安全局（辛贝特）局长，要求其调查有关外国势力干预选举、旨在提高阿拉伯选民投票率的指控。

在信中，中央执行委员会主席诺姆·索尔伯格承认他无法证实任何怀疑，而以色列警方也表示他们没有收到任何证据来支持这些说法。

阿拉伯政党领导人称利库德集团的攻击等同于煽动，并誓言捍卫选举结果。拉姆党领导人曼苏尔·阿巴斯表示，他将配合任何调查；联合名单党主席优素福·贾巴林则表示，内塔尼亚胡“败选”且“拒绝接受选民的决定”。

许多给以色列巴勒斯坦公民带来苦难的政策都是在国家安全部长本·格维尔的领导下制定的，而本·格维尔此前曾因支持恐怖主义和煽动反阿拉伯种族主义而被定罪。

周二，一些阿拉伯人占多数的城镇居民告诉 CNN，由于受到支持本·格维尔等以色列极右翼政党的男子的恐吓，他们离开了投票站，没有去投票。

“人们面临着巨大的压力——一位老妇人无法承受这种压力，另一位孕妇也无法忍受这种情况而离开了……这一切都是因为种族歧视，”泰贝居民乌尔法特说道，她要求只透露自己的名字。

Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images

从蒂比的角度来看，阿拉伯选民的投票率高于犹太选民，这表明巴勒斯坦公民“愿意影响和参与”以色列政治。

他说：“我们受到右翼势力的阻挠，有时也受到反对派的阻挠。这不是民主，而是种族民主，是犹太人的民主。”

阿拉伯社区的选民也表达了同样的被排斥感，许多选民表示，正是这种被排斥感促使他们这次走上投票站。

蒂拉居民蒙瑟·曼苏尔（60岁）过去曾投过票，但这一次他觉得自己的选票真的有机会发挥作用。

“我们以前对选举从未感兴趣。但种族主义的加剧和日常生活的变化迫使人们走上街头，行使他们的权利，”他说。

“我们属于这个国家；我们是这个国家的一部分。所以我们必须行使这项权利。”