How an election defeat triggered a carnival of racism against Palestinians

A day before the Israeli elections, I was walking through a well-heeled, leafy neighbourhood in West Jerusalem, five minutes from President Issac Herzog’s official residence. I was on my way to interview an expert on Palestinian citizens of Israel, who were expected to vote in large numbers for the first time. Three children - they could not have been more than seven or eight - jumped off the slides in a playground and ran towards me. One of them asked whom I was going to vote for. A funny question, I thought, coming from kids. I told them I would vote for the Joint List. The leader of the group asked, “What is the Joint List? Is it Bibi?” I said no, without explaining that it was an Arab bloc of parties. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The kid said: “So you’re not voting for Netanyahu?” I said no. He spat at me, and the other two gave me the middle finger. They must have thought I was a Jew defecting from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s camp. I wondered what they would have done if they knew I was Palestinian. Kids spitting at a middle-aged woman didn’t seem to bother any of the passersby. To liberal Zionists, this election was a debate about the boundaries of Israeli democracy, and whether it could include us as Arabs. Wherever you look in the streets and highways, you will see neon signs, stickers, or big election billboards warning Jews about Palestinians But the more I think about it, something far deeper is going on than mere hatred of a minority group, deeply entrenched though that is. The reaction to 7 October merely brought it out into the open. Wherever you look in the streets and highways, you will see neon signs, stickers, or big election billboards warning Jews about Palestinians, and calling openly for more occupation, expulsion and deportation. Palestinians who live in the city have to hold their breath if they want to live with this reality. They have no right to complain against another sticker calling on them to be killed or expelled. It’s not just in every debate in this election campaign. You can hear it in small conversations in the street: “We will not sit with the Arabs.” All the discussion is about how to build coalitions without the votes of the Arabs. Palestinians vote for survival Three Israeli political parties ran on platforms that openly support the deportation, displacement and expulsion of Palestinians - even those with Israeli citizenship. Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and head of the Religious Zionism party, has made “Judaising” the Galilee and Negev regions of Israel, where many Palestinians citizens live, a key feature of his election campaign. All of this was orchestrated by the person who by rights should be Israel’s outgoing prime minister, Netanyahu, but who continues as its caretaker. Haaretz analysed Netanyahu’s social media activity on election day. Every second post by the prime minister was against Arabs, laying the groundwork for claims about the integrity of the vote. The response of Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up a fifth of the population, was immediate. They flocked to the polls, gaining an unheard-of 19 seats, and became the third-largest parliamentary bloc after Likud and Yashar. Those who had boycotted elections for their entire lives went to vote for the first time. This was not some sudden revelation. Every Palestinian understood that they were only part of Israel as window dressing, to make it look democratic, but with no meaningful ability to change their lives. In the past, just over half of them voted. The genocide in Gaza did not end there. It could well continue in Israel itself But this time, it was different. The Palestinians of Israel know that what happened in Gaza, and is continuing to happen in the occupied West Bank, could happen to them too. Israel committed genocide and got away with it. This vote is a survival vote; an expressed, very existential fear. Palestinian sociologist Ameer Fakhoury told Middle East Eye: “The moment your existence becomes the central concern, the very meaning of citizenship changes. A citizen, in the substantive sense, should not have to engage in politics simply to avoid death. “This is not how citizenship is supposed to function. When survival becomes the dominant motivation, the boundaries of ordinary political participation collapse. The symbolic and substantive meaning of citizenship is fundamentally undermined.” Such a result in a “normal” democratic country would have ended with the opposition winning. But not in Israel. Netanyahu’s initial loss became an orgy, a festival of racism against Palestinians. No good or bad Arabs Channel 12 News reported that on election day and its aftermath, there was a 400 percent rise in racist discourse against Arabs on social media, as Arabs were accused of stealing the elections. Ayala Hasson, the veteran journalist of Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan 11, claimed, without any proof, that some of the 19 newly elected Knesset members from the Palestinian-led parties, Ra’am and the Joint List, “transferred money to Hamas”. Hasson, a pro-Netanyahu journalist, also questioned the integrity of the elections, saying that Palestinian voters received envelopes with money as part of an illegal voter mobilisation campaign. It doesn’t really matter what your politics are. The fact that you are an Arab is proof enough of your guilt. I have boycotted Israeli elections for years, but this time I will vote Read More » Mansour Abbas, the leader of Ra’am, has openly adopted a Zionist agenda by acknowledging the Jewish state and calling for national service. He received the same treatment. This means that even Palestinians who strip themselves of their national identity cannot be part of a political system designed for Jews only. The same thing happened to Lucy Aharish, an Arab journalist married to an Israeli Jew who served as a combat soldier in the reserves during the genocide in Gaza. Aharish was savaged by prominent figures in Likud. Itzik Bonzel, a Likud candidate, posted on Facebook: “You can walk around our streets as much as you like, but merely living among us does not make you Israeli in any way, and you will never be part of us, nor part of the people of Israel.” Aharish is an opponent of the Palestinian national cause. Bonzel said she was “a foreign body, without any real roots in this land, and you will never be an Israeli”, concluding with a threat: “Know your place.” Arabs in Israel can no longer ignore the fact that for large groups in Israel, possibly now the majority, there are no good or bad Arabs. It matters not who goes over to their side. For them, Palestinians are illegitimate and should be expelled from the Jewish state. The genocide in Gaza did not end there. It could well continue in Israel itself - and this should not be ignored by the Palestinian leadership. I was asked in an interview with a Canadian radio station whether I thought Palestinians would vote again in future elections. Did this result inspire them? For a moment I was taken aback by the stupidity of this question. “I am not inspired, I am terrified,” I replied. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.