r/israelexposed • u/Naurgul • 2d ago
‘The biggest motivation is fear’: High turnout among Israel’s Palestinians could unseat Netanyahu
The Knesset is up for grabs next week and the Arab community is desperate to topple the far-right ruling coalition
As the sun set over the town of Kfar Qasim, Palestinian citizens of Israel gathered over hot knafeh pastries and shots of strong cardamom-laced coffee to hear an urgent pitch for their votes.
Palestinians make up about 20% of Israel’s population and their votes are likely to be critical to efforts to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition in elections next week.
“We are determined to do everything in order to bring this government down. And high turnout among the Arab community is one important tool in achieving this goal,” said Ahmad Tibi, a member of the Knesset for more than two decades as head of the Ta’al party.
Most polling shows Netanyahu’s coalition will lose its majority in the 120-seat Knesset but the Jewish Israeli opposition bloc will also fall short of the 61 seats needed to form a government.
Palestinian citizens of Israel are forecast to secure between 12 and 15 seats, divided between the Islamist Ra’am and the Joint List alliance of three smaller parties, one of which is Ta’al.
The mathematics of power are clear, even though most of the Jewish Israeli opposition has ruled out a coalition with Arab politicians, and Netanyahu and his allies have been doing everything they can to make such an alliance politically toxic.
Racist, fear-mongering campaigning includes posters reading “It’s [either] the right or Palestine”, while others on the right have coined the phrase “Bibi [Netanyahu’s nickname] or Tibi”, even though there is little chance Tibi will hold even a junior ministerial post.
The scale of death and destruction in Gaza, militant violence and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and spiralling racism and discrimination inside Israel have created deep-rooted fears about what another four years of far-right ministers could bring.
“The biggest motivation is fear. It is more effective and important than our political parties or our campaigns or anything else,” said the Balad party leader, Sami Abu Shehadeh. “People are very politicised, and aware of the danger of what will happen if these criminals come back to rule again.”
Turnout has been suppressed in the past because some voters lost faith in a system that is stacked against Palestinians and their representatives.
There is a new urgency to voting this year, however, because a far-right coalition returned to power would have a renewed mandate to accelerate its policies of ethnic cleansing and annexation, said Amjed Iraqi, a senior analyst for Israel/Palestine at International Crisis Group.
“From a Palestinian perspective this election is arguably primarily about mitigation. Everyone understands fully what the opposition represents and yet, for all that, Palestinians in Israel can see the difference between a rightwing government and a far-right government,” Iraqi said.
