{"id":10582,"date":"2026-10-22T07:21:06","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T07:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=10582"},"modified":"2026-10-22T07:21:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T07:21:06","slug":"in-israel-election-palestinian-citizens-weigh-fear-against-disillusionment-israel-election-2026-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=10582","title":{"rendered":"In Israel election, Palestinian citizens weigh fear against disillusionment | Israel Election 2026 News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Occupied East Jerusalem \u2013<\/strong> Laila Atamneh, 19, remembers her parents arguing at the dinner table every time Israel would hold an election.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe thinks it feeds into the idea that Israel is a democracy and Palestinians have the same rights here \u2013 only to get extremely humiliated, and then get one of the worst governments ever, and be surrounded by fascists,\u201d said Atamneh, who hails from the neighbourhood of Beit Hanina.<\/p>\n

On October 27, the 19-year-old will vote for the first time in Israel\u2019s general election<\/a>. 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<\/a> in the next Israeli government but, she believes, bear the brunt of its occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I have to be these people\u2019s voice,\u201d said Atamneh. \u201cNot that one person is really capable of that much \u2013 but if this gives them one percent hope, then I will do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Atamneh, who speaks Arabic, said she struggles to follow election coverage in Hebrew. \u201cI personally feel excluded from everything, that we\u2019re not even a part of the discussion,\u201d she added. \u201cIt feels like none of the parties really address our generation of first-time Palestinian voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her mixed feelings capture the mood among Palestinian citizens of Israel \u2013 about a fifth of its population \u2013 ahead of the election. Few believe the system will serve them, but many fear another government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel\u2019s longest-serving prime minister, who has overseen Israel\u2019s 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\u2019s far-right-led bloc nor the self-styled Zionist opposition alliance<\/a> will be able to govern without Ra\u2019am and the Joint List, the two Arab-led parties.<\/p>\n

And if no one can form a majority in the 120-seat Knesset, new elections will be called \u2013 keeping the current Netanyahu government, the most hard right in Israel\u2019s history, in place until then.<\/p>\n

Voting in the shadow of genocide<\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis 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,\u201d said As\u2019ad Ghanem, a political scientist at the University of Haifa. \u201cPalestinian citizens are really afraid. Their leadership is afraid, and this is real.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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 \u201cthe Jews are coming\u201d to \u201cdo to you what they did to us\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cActs like these make me more afraid that the settlers will get worse and try to take more Palestinian land,\u201d said Hanan. \u201cThis makes me want to vote more, and want to encourage other people to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018We are under a real danger\u2019<\/h2>\n

On September 23, Israel\u2019s Central Elections Committee voted to disqualify\u00a0 Ra\u2019am and the Joint List \u2013 an alliance of the Hadash, Balad and Ta\u2019al parties \u2013 before the Supreme Court overturned the decisions. However, Balad\u2019s Sami Abu Shehadeh withdrew his candidacy after the court indicated that a majority of justices supported upholding his disqualification.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cWe feel that we are under attack,\u201d said Thabet Abu Rass, an expert on Arab-Jewish relations. \u201cThis is why we will cast our vote in a higher percentage.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to take it there,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

The potential voter surge comes despite Palestinians\u2019 limited, ossified choices.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery election, I tell myself that this year I\u2019m not going to vote, because in reality we don\u2019t feel that the Arab members do much,\u201d said Hanan, bemoaning the lack of female representation or new political voices. \u201cBut in the end, I always go and vote, because I feel that maybe this time it will help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite people\u2019s misgivings, Ghanem, the political scientist, dismissed the potential for a mass boycott as \u201ca small point of view\u201d by now. \u201cWe are under a real danger,\u201d he said, \u201cand we can contribute to ending this government\u2019s term.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanan said, \u201cI know that voting is like admitting that there is an Israeli country, but it\u2019s here. We can\u2019t be all dreamy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The campaign operative added: \u201cThe only day that we have the right to be equal with the Jews \u2026 is the day of elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kingmakers without a seat at the table<\/h2>\n

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 \u2013 with the Arab parties making the difference.<\/p>\n

On paper, that should make the Joint List and Ra\u2019am kingmakers in the election. Yet opposition leader Naftali Bennett has said \u201cThe Arab parties are not Zionist, and therefore we will not rely on them.\u201d 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: \u201cThere is no Gadi [Eisenkot] without [Ahmad] Tibi\u201d has become a frequent campaign slogan for Netanyahu, referring to the leader of Ta\u2019al.<\/p>\n

With the election at a knife\u2019s edge, Palestinian voters must weigh principle against strategic voting in a system stacked against them. Initially, Atamneh said she considered voting tactically for Ra\u2019am, a religiously conservative party with a Bedouin base in the Naqab, or even the Democrats, the liberal Zionist party \u2013 both likelier than the Joint List to join an anti-Netanyahu coalition. But she decided to vote for the Joint List on principle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I can give in to a few things,\u201d she said, \u201cat the end of the day, I have to abide by morals and values I can\u2019t let go of that easily. As Palestinians, we have to support Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2021, Ra\u2019am 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 \u2013 that real gains and protections for Palestinian citizens come from sitting in a coalition government \u2013 has failed to persuade everyone.<\/p>\n

Ghanem argued Ra\u2019am leader Mansour Abbas \u201cgives everything almost in order to get a little bit of budget \u2026 but we\u2019re still Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Bedouin citizens are expected to largely support Ra\u2019am, hoping it will join the ruling coalition like it did in 2021-2022. \u201cBedouin political discourse is a civic discourse rather than anything else,\u201d said Abu Rass, with Bedouins focused on \u201cdaily survival\u201d \u2013 hoping inclusion into the government can bring about \u201crecognising their unrecognised villages, investing in education, and employment\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018Before ending the occupation, I want to save my people\u2019<\/h2>\n

As Ghanem put it, Palestinian politics in Israel is \u201cvery weak because we don\u2019t have consolidated political power internally in our community\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s government from outside the cabinet. Wanting to replace Netanyahu, he said, \u201cdoesn\u2019t mean that we have to be part of the coalition\u201d \u2013 only part of \u201cthe whole bloc that wants to replace this racist government\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Palestinian communities.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cIf the Arabs get 15, 16, 17 MKs [members of the Knesset], everybody will knock on the doors of the Arabs,\u201d he said. \u201cPublicly, they are not willing to say that \u2026 [but] I\u2019m sure after the election, they will talk differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. \u201cBefore ending the occupation,\u201d he added, \u201cI want to save my people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warning of another far-right government, Atamneh believes she has finally convinced her mother to vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s bad, and then there\u2019s extremely bad. We\u2019d much rather have bad than extremely bad,\u201d she said. \u201cEven if I can prevent one death or one demolition order or anything like that, then it\u2019s better than nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a brief pause, she added: \u201cBut then you\u2019re like \u2013 well, I\u2019m just helping Israel reshape its image [as a democracy]. It feels like a dead end.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Occupied East Jerusalem \u2013 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t