{"id":654653,"date":"2026-10-23T07:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T07:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/654653\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T07:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T07:58:08","slug":"the-biggest-motivation-is-fear-high-turnout-among-israels-palestinians-could-unseat-netanyahu-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/654653\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The biggest motivation is fear\u2019: High turnout among Israel\u2019s Palestinians could unseat Netanyahu | Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the sun set over the town of Kfar Qasim, Palestinian citizens of Israel<\/a> gathered over hot knafeh pastries and shots of strong cardamom-laced coffee to hear an urgent pitch for their votes.<\/p>\n

Palestinians make up about 20% of Israel\u2019s population and their votes are likely to be critical to efforts to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> and his far-right coalition in elections next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d said Ahmad Tibi, a member of the Knesset for more than two decades as head of the Ta\u2019al party.<\/p>\n

Most polling shows Netanyahu\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The audience at an election event in Tayibe where they were addressed by Ahmad Tibi. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Palestinian citizens of Israel are forecast to secure between 12 and 15 seats, divided between the Islamist Ra\u2019am and the Joint List alliance of three smaller parties, one of which is Ta\u2019al.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Racist, fear-mongering campaigning includes posters reading \u201cIt\u2019s [either] the right or Palestine\u201d, while others on the right have coined the phrase \u201cBibi [Netanyahu\u2019s nickname] or Tibi\u201d, even though there is little chance Tibi will hold even a junior ministerial post.<\/p>\n

In the history of the state of Israel, there have been just two Palestinian ministers: Raleb Majadele held the portfolio for sport for two years and Issawi Frej was in charge of regional coordination for just over one year.<\/p>\n

Sami Abu Shehadeh, who has been disqualified for running in the elections, addresses an audience in Tayibe, with Ahmad Tibi to his immediate left and Yousef Jabareen, the Joint List\u2019s chair, to Tibi\u2019s left. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

There is recent precedent for breaking promises not to work with Palestinians, however. The Ra\u2019am leader, Mansour Abbas, in 2021 took his party into a historic coalition government with Naftali Bennett, now part of the opposition bloc, and Netanyahu himself had previously started coalition negotiations with Abbas.<\/p>\n

One prospective voter, Mohammed, works at a hi-tech company, managing both Jewish and Arab employees, which he sees as a template for a different future for Israel.<\/p>\n

Although disappointed that most Jewish Israeli opposition parties have ruled out a coalition with Palestinian parties, he understands the political logic, and he expects their position to shift once results are in.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, everything is mathematics, right? One plus one is two. They cannot do anything without [those seats]. So they must do [some kind of deal] and they will do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is voting and urging all his friends, Jewish and Palestinian, to do the same. \u201cYou can say, \u2018OK, they don\u2019t like me and I want to relocate\u2019. But if you want to stay here, you must vote. You must do that. Because if this government stays in power, it will be a disaster,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For Palestinian politicians, any alliance with a Jewish-Israeli opposition is also challenging. None of the parties are calling for a two-state solution, most vigorously oppose a Palestinian state and most support the settlement movement in the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s between bad and worse. Any new government will not be my cup of tea, but I am choosing between Netanyahu, [Bezalel] Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir and the opposition,\u201d Tibi said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest motivation is fear. It is more effective and important than our political parties or our campaigns or anything else,\u201d said the Balad party leader, Sami Abu Shehadeh. \u201cPeople are very politicised, and aware of the danger of what will happen if these criminals come back to rule again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turnout has been suppressed in the past because some voters lost faith in a system that is stacked against Palestinians and their representatives.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s supreme court effectively forced Abu Shehadeh to drop out of the race last month over an article about the 7 October Hamas-led attacks, in a decision widely criticised<\/a> for enshrining different standards of free speech for Jewish and Palestinian citizens of the state.<\/p>\n

A motion to disqualify the national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, for racist language, including calls for ethnic cleansing, was not upheld.<\/p>\n

Other Palestinians do not take part in elections on principle. Nagham Zbeedat, a journalist with Haaretz newspaper, laid out<\/a> her opposition in an article earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not vote because I refuse to legitimize a system that treats my rights as favors, my safety as optional and my humanity as negotiable,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI refuse to be grateful for crumbs while Palestinians are erased \u2013 slowly here, violently elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In Kafr Qassim, the date of the election is a reminder of Palestinian vulnerability. Two days after voting, the town will remember one of the most notorious massacres<\/a> in Israel\u2019s history, when in 1956 border police killed 49 men, women and children, shot because they broke a curfew they didn\u2019t know had been imposed on them.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 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,\u201d Iraqi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s the sense you need to make your presence known and heard and shown, in the face of the far right, just by going to the ballot. There\u2019s no clarity about what comes afterwards but that\u2019s how powerless I think a lot of people feel.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the sun set over the town of Kfar Qasim, Palestinian citizens of Israel gathered over hot knafeh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-654653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}