Palestinians inside may decide the elections

author

Nihad Abu Ghosh

The Palestinian Arabs inside the country have an unprecedented historical opportunity to resolve the most fierce electoral battle in the history of Israel, a battle whose impact will not be limited to the fate and existence of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip only, but will extend to affect the entire region, including the Palestinians inside themselves, their existence, their political and civil rights, and the legitimacy of their work.

This time, the matter is not related to what is known as the giant's egg, which is an advantage that coincidentally allows a small force to become decisive if it sides with one of the conflicting parties. What actually happened between 1992 and 1996, when the five representatives from the two Arab lists (3 from the Front and 2 from Progressive) provided a safety net for Yitzhak Rabin’s government without being participants in it. The matter was repeated later in a slightly different manner with the United Arab List, which joined as a partner in the change government headed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid in 2021, a participation that was the subject of widespread disagreement among Palestinians inside and among all Palestinians.

This time is different for several reasons, the most prominent of which is the scale of the challenges and dangers facing the Palestinians in general, which the Netanyahu government has declared publicly, and through the electoral programs of members of the components of the government that committed the crime of genocide, and is now proposing explicit displacement in the West Bank and Gaza, and the stripping of political legitimacy from the Palestinians inside as long as they remain clinging to their national and national identity.

The second reason is the sharp and deep division in Israeli society, a division that has no solution in the near term, as increasing circles realize that Zionist fascism, like any fascist regime in the world, will turn against its own people at some point, and therefore the extremist forces that have glorified and practiced violence for many years will reuse it against Israelis who differ from their opinion or ideological orientation. Although the option of forming a unity government from the main Zionist forces will remain, it is not favored by any party, and if this option is presented, it may be either under external pressure, or part of Netanyahu’s tricks to buy time and avoid defeat.

The third and most important reason is the weight of the Arabs, which cannot be overlooked or neglected. The Arabs were seen as a marginal force with no effect or importance. The Zionist forces considered relying on their votes to be a form of disgrace, and an unforgivable violation of the “national” Zionist and Jewish identity of the party that did so, to the point where Gadi Eisenkot, Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett, and Avigdor Lieberman were quick to disavow this “disgraceful” charge, declaring that they would not rely on Arab votes and would not include them in any alternative government to Netanyahu, whose favorite propaganda is still exposing With his opponents and claiming that they will form a government with Tibi or Mansour Abbas.

Netanyahu had previously used the Arab vote as a scarecrow to intimidate the right-wing public when he claimed in the 2015 elections that Arabs were “flocking” to the ballot boxes. He was lying, of course, and his claims had an effect in increasing the voting percentage among the right-wing public, and now he is raising the slogan “The right or Palestine.”

The number of Arab voters is approximately one million one hundred and sixty thousand voters, constituting about 18% of those with the right to vote. Because of the age composition, this percentage is less than the Arab percentage of the population. It is normal for Arabs to get about 26 seats, but they always get much less than that due to the always lower voting percentage among Arabs than among Jews, and the presence of active political forces calling for a boycott, in addition to the success of some Zionist forces in infiltrating Arab sectors through means of intimidation, enticement, and buying off debts.

The best result obtained by the Arabs was 15 seats in the year 2020 after the establishment of the Joint List, but the division that followed and the divergence of paths between the components of the joint group led to a decline in this momentum, which is now returning with greater force with the sense of imminent danger, and this was accompanied by declarations of desire to participate from activists and figures who were known for boycotting the elections. The fascist forces are fully aware of this, and after failing to remove the Arab lists, they will now work to disrupt the Arab vote and spread an atmosphere of terror and fear to influence the elections.

No one challenges the right of some forces to boycott the elections for reasons of principled conscience, and no one is betting that the Zionist forces of change have better radical alternatives than the Netanyahu-Ben Gvir-Smotrich government. All Zionist forces refuse to dismantle any settlement, and declare their categorical opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state, and most of them support genocide and adopt the option of displacement or remain silent about it. But the issue at hand now is truly an existential issue, and it rises above any secondary dispute. Either it is to renew the mandate of Ben Gvir and Smotrich and their mentor, who is caring for and supervising them, to further abuse the prisoners, the lives of the Palestinians, the dignity of the people, demolish homes, and prepare the country for a plan of mass displacement, or to gather the stock of oppression, injustice, and feelings of historical victimhood, and transform them into a political force, with a decisive vote that will overthrow the fascist right-wing government and sweep the Zionist parties from the cities. And the Arab villages, today will be a day for the Arabs if they truly succeed in mobilizing their energies and gathering their forces to defeat fascism. Overthrowing the fascist right without participating in the alternative government or betting on it is the best thing the Palestinians inside the country can do on this day.