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‘The Arab Vote’: How Israeli Racism Has Ruined Their Elections

By Robert Inlakesh | Palestine Chronicle | November 1, 2026

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that Palestinians are responsible for “stealing” the latest round of Israeli elections, in what has been labeled the most consequential race in Tel Aviv’s history. What instead has been revealed is that Israel’s existence is predicated on the idea that democracy should be forbidden.

Palestinian citizens of Israel turned up to vote in historic numbers this past Tuesday, with roughly 80% of eligible ‘Arab voters’ casting their ballots. As a result, they managed to secure 19 seats for Arab Parties in the Israeli Knesset (parliament).

In order for a government to be formed in Israel’s parliamentary system, a coalition must gain at least 61 seats. Currently, Israeli PM Netanyahu’s bloc has 53 seats, while his opposition secured 48.

The opposition, headed by Gadi Eisenkot, ran a campaign based around the idea of forcing Netanyahu from power and argued their case fiercely, with many claiming that Israel’s future depended on this election. When the results emerged, the opposition fell short of the numbers they were projected to hit, according to the pre-election polls and Netanyahu’s bloc managed to secure more seats than expected.

However, the factor of ‘the Arab vote’ changed everything. Because the Palestinian citizens of Israel exercised their ability to vote, an activity that many previously felt to be useless, the opposition bloc on paper has the ability to form a government and oust the longtime Israeli leader. For years, this opposition has mobilized hundreds of thousands of Israelis in mass demonstrations against Netanyahu, and now they have the opportunity to act.

But there is one thing standing in their way: the opposition refuses to work with Arab Parties. Doing so, even if the Israeli opposition sought to do it as a tactical maneuver, would be to commit political suicide. Giving Palestinians a say over any Israeli policy is viewed by the vast majority of Israeli Jews as tantamount to the destruction of their Zionist project.

Israel is Antithetical to Democracy

Israel advertises itself as the “only Democracy in the Middle East”. This is one of its key hasbara talking points, yet when the Israeli society and political leadership get even a whiff of democracy, they seek to ban it.

There’s an obvious elephant in the room that also has to be addressed when discussing the Israeli political system: around 30% of the people living between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea are completely excluded from voting; instead, they are subjected to military rule. On July 18, 2024, the Israeli Knesset unanimously passed a bill that banned the creation of a Palestinian State. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) also ruled that the Israelis have to immediately withdraw from Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, yet the Israelis have done the very opposite.

Israeli settlers living in the West Bank are treated the same as their counterparts living in Tel Aviv; they can vote, and every mainstream Israeli politician dubs the territory “Judea and Samaria”, arguing that the territory is the “biblical heartland of Israel”. There are no “peace talks”; they refuse to engage any Palestinian parties and vow never to leave the territories they have seized and illegally settled. In other words, this is not a temporary occupation; it is a de facto annexation of these lands.

The only reason Israel has not declared a de jure annexation of these territories is that it would then face a dilemma, whereby it must kill or violently expel all these Palestinians, but it understands that the conditions to successfully do that have not yet materialized. Not only will it be militarily costly, but neighboring countries are not prepared to open their borders and facilitate it.

If Israel were to give these persecuted people Israeli citizenship, then the result would be that Palestinians would be a majority, while Jews remain a minority. In other words, Palestinians would vote in a government that is truly representative of the population, and the Zionist State, which is built on the concept of Jewish Supremacy, exceptionalism, and exclusivity, would be gone.

Inside what is called “Israel proper” – a term used to exclude the West Bank, Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and Gaza – the Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are today also referred to as “Arab Israelis”, are roughly 22% of the total population. They are the Palestinians who managed to remain on their lands during the Nakba (1947-9). Their birthrate is already higher than that of their Jewish counterparts. In addition to this, the highest birthrate amongst Jews is that of the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox), who are essentially useless to the Zionist project as they overwhelmingly do not work and refuse to join the army.

In other words, if the Israelis are to continue to allow their Christian and Muslim citizens to vote, then eventually the Jewish citizenry are not going to have the numbers to be able to form an all-Jewish government anymore.

Already, this problem has presented itself in the latest round of elections. A coalition government could easily be formed, but it would include the Arab Parties, who will inevitably demand that various Israeli projects come to a halt. For example, the Israelis have sought to ethnically cleanse the Bedouins of the Naqab (Negev) region, cracking down on them and destroying their homes in order to achieve this. That project of ethnic cleansing and Judaization through the establishment of Jewish settlements would be brought to a halt. There would also likely be resources actually allocated to combating criminal gangs in Palestinian neighborhoods, or funds put into their communities more generally.

All of this is a threat to the Israeli Jewish public and the Israeli Jewish government’s core values. They seek to expand the territory which they currently occupy, to make it more Jewish and less Arab. The last thing they want to see is a government that would help Palestinian Muslims and Christians.

In their irrational racism, the Israelis have made an obvious mistake when approaching this issue. The likes of Itamar Ben Gvir, who used his position as Security Minister to persecute Palestinian citizens of Israel, while rubbing it in their faces and passing racist bills, have now politicized a population that had long been far from political mobilization.

Israel is putting its back against the wall, and because of that we just saw a protest vote, one that sent a powerful message to the Israeli leadership, one that asserts: ‘we are here’. In reaction to this, Israeli settlers began to physically assault Arab voters on election day, as Netanyahu accused them of being part of a Hamas conspiracy, evidently inciting against them.

Now the results of the election are being blamed upon them. In the eyes of the Israelis, the Arabs aren’t supposed to ever have a say; they can vote but have no right to influence any government, nor its decisions. Suddenly, the Israelis felt a little taste of what democracy can bring, and they are advocating removing this right from their Muslim and Christian citizens. A notion that even American Zionist commentators, like Ben Shapiro, have themselves echoed.

Democracy would destroy Israel overnight, because the Jewish settlers are just under half of the population living in occupied Palestine. If there ever were a truly democratic election, the Zionist regime would no longer exist. In order to protect that regime of ethno-supremacy, they must kill and/or expel almost all of the Palestinians, at least doing so until there aren’t enough of them to ever prove a demographic threat ever again.

Now that Netanyahu is blaming the Arab for stealing his election victory, he will continue inciting hatred against them for political gain. Yet, this strategy is short-sighted, as stirring up tensions in this way could result in a domestic uprising, one which could spiral into something much more dangerous for the Zionist regime. In 2021, we got a taste of what could happen if Tel Aviv pushes things too far.

– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.

November 1, 2026 - Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Israel, Palestine, Zionism