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‘Lack of hope’: How will Palestinians vote in Israeli elections? | Israel-Palestine conflict

Occupied East Jerusalem – All eyes are on the Palestinian vote as the people of Israel head to the polls on Tuesday to elect a new parliament for the fifth time in less than four years.

The country has faced a protracted political crisis marked by the inability of politicians to form a stable government since April 2019.

Polls in recent weeks show that turnout among the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Israel is expected to fall. “Historical Low” although Palestinian politicians insist that a higher vote in the community could prevent former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from returning to power.

It is unclear whether any of the Palestinian parties will collect enough votes to pass the 3.25% threshold needed to enter parliament. That number of votes equates to four seats in Israel’s 120-seat Knesset.

As campaigning in Palestinian towns inside Israel intensifies, analysts, activists and residents say they feel a lack of motivation to vote, but some polls show Voter turnout could increase. Historically, Palestinian turnout has been between 40 and 50 percent.

Haifa-based political analyst Ameer Makhoul said he believes Palestinians in Israel “lack hope in political parties and the Knesset”.

“There is a sense of frustration and defeat, not caring about the elections,” he told Al Jazeera.

In June last year, after two years of political stalemate, right-wing Israeli politician Naftali Bennett became prime minister after striking a coalition agreement with center-right Yair Lapid. It ended leader Likud Netanyahu’s record 12 years in power, which has been marred by his corruption trial.

Two and a half weeks later, their fragile alliance broken, Lapid took over as prime minister from Bennett and Tuesday’s election was scheduled.

Three Palestinian blocs are active. The Arab Movement for Change, led by Ahmad Tibi, and the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, led by Ayman Odeh, formed an alliance, known in Hebrew as the Hadash-Ta list. ‘al.

The other two blocs are the Balad or Tajamu (National Democratic Alliance) party, led by Sami Abu Shehadeh, and the United Arab List led by Mansour Abbas. Abbas was criticized for joining Bennett’s coalition government last year.

The four Palestinian parties successfully ran together in the Common List coalition in 2015 and 2020, both times becoming the third largest faction in the Knesset. Despite that, Palestinian parties have always been in opposition and limited in their ability to bring about change.

As for the Israeli parties, the main candidates are Likud – the largest party in Israel – led by Netanyahu; Yesh Atid led by Lapid; and the National Unity Party, a coalition of the Blue and White parties of Benjamin Gantz and Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope.

Polls show Netanyahu, who is running against far-right politicians Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich of the “national faction”, likely to win a 61-seat majority.

Palestinian political parties in Israel: The breakup

Democratic Front for Peace and Equality and the Arab Movement for Change:

  • A bloc of secular, centre-left political parties with a Palestinian majority, led by longtime politicians Odeh and Tibi.
  • The Democratic Front is a communist party and is currently the oldest Palestinian party running for seats in the Knesset with a consistent and substantial voting base among Palestinians in Israel.
  • The two sides push for a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel. They want Israeli settlements dismantled and a Palestinian state established in the occupied territories in East Jerusalem and the West Bank as well as in the besieged Gaza Strip.
  • According to the polls, the list is likely to pass the 3.25 percent threshold to win seats in the Knesset alongside the United Arabs List.

List of United Arab Emirates:

  • The conservative Muslim party led by Abbas has divided Palestinians in Israel.
  • In June 2021, the list broke political taboos by becoming the first Palestinian majority political party to join a governing coalition since 1948.
  • It promotes the assimilation of Palestinians into Israeli society and has been criticized for voting to pass the law distinguish against the Palestinians.
  • The party is popular among the Palestinian Bedouins, especially in the Naqab desert (Negev), but is less popular among the more nationalist Palestinians, who see Abbas as a traitor. In March 2021 in the town of Umm al-Fahm, one of the largest Palestinian cities in Israel, Abbas was attacked by people in the streets during anti-crime protests and demanded to leave. .

National Democratic Alliance:

  • The leftist anti-Zionist party founded in 1995 promoted the transformation of Israel from a Jewish state by law into a “state of all its citizens” and at the same time forming a new state. Separate Palestine.
  • Shehadeh is considered by many to be near the street, especially in May 2021 uprising when he participated in Palestinian protests in Israel and the occupation of East Jerusalem, and visited prisoners and families of Palestinians killed by Israel. The uprisings were triggered by the forced relocation of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem and by Israeli forces attacking the al-Aqsa Mosque.

What do Palestinians in Israel say about this year’s elections?

Palestinians living in Israel make up 20% of the population and hold Israeli passports. They became an involuntary minority in the violent ethnic cleansing of Palestine from 1947 to 1949 to create a “Jewish state”.

Because of Since then, Israel’s oppressive policies have been against themPalestinian areas in Israel suffer from overcrowding, high crime rates, demolition of homes as well as violence and intense surveillance by Israeli authorities.

Residents say long-standing problems are only getting worse despite the involvement of Palestinian parties in Israeli politics.

Khalil Gharra, 30 years old from Jatt village, lives in Haifa. While he once voted for Tajamu, he said he won’t vote this year because he believes political parties “can’t do anything inside the Knesset” and “try to make the a more democratic country from within has not yielded results.”

“They keep trying to convince themselves and the people with slogans, but nothing has changed for the people – the destruction of homes, the violence and the crime – and for the past 10 years, everything has just getting worse,” Gharra told Al Jazeera.

“Fighting within the framework of being a citizen does not take you to a place of liberation and dignity,” he said. “None of these parties have tried to get out of the Knesset and actually build something.”

Ninety-three percent of the land in Israel is classified as “state land”. Less than 3 percent are under the jurisdiction of the autonomous cities of Palestine. Much of the land, including privately owned land by Palestinians, was seized by the state in the 1940s.

Since 1948, Israel has built at least 900 new Jewish towns but not a Palestinian, according to Haifa-based legal rights group Adalah. Palestinians in Israel face severe restrictions on urban planning, development and expansion due to Israeli policies.

The majority of Palestinians in Israel live in Arab towns and villages while a minority live in so-called “mixed cities” such as Haifa and Jaffa. These cities were ethnically purified in 1948 and are now home to the majority of Israel’s Jews.

Nijmeh Hijazi, a 32-year-old resident of Tamra, a suburb of Haifa, countered Gharra’s views.

“Some people are saying: Don’t scare us with Ben-Gvir and Smotrich on the far right,” she told Al Jazeera. “We are more aware of that. Tell us about something reasonable, about what you’ve achieved, what you’ve got.”

“Of everything that’s happening in Palestinian society, you’re afraid of Ben-Gvir, but why aren’t you afraid of the crime, the violence in our community?” she asked.

During the past decade, crime and murder has increasingly plagued the Palestinian community inside Israel with more than 100 Palestinians killed in murders last year.

“They put cameras all over our cities, and they tie them to the police system on the pretext that surveillance will prevent and reduce crime,” Gharra said.

“You start to understand that ever since the cameras were installed, crime has only increased – since they started opening more police stations, the murders have only increased,” he said.

But Fidaa Shehadeh, a 38-year-old resident of al-Lyd and a political activist, says she believes voting is her only outlet to influence change.

“As a society, to build leadership, you have to give legitimacy to the leadership and elections are the only tool,” she told Al Jazeera. “This tool at the end of the day is tied to Knesset. This is how I see things.”

Still, Shehadeh wasn’t thrilled with her picks at the ballot box.

“I just voted for Tajamu so they wouldn’t go home, not because I believe I should vote this time,” she explained.

She may have an Israeli identity card, but Shehadeh says her life is far from that of other Israeli citizens.

“At the end of the day, I am Palestinian,” she said. “I am part of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, like it or not. This is how they [Israel] deal with me and the way I see myself”.



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