’48 Palestinians and Israeli Apartheid’s Elections
Reprinted from Free Haifa
Two million Arab Palestinians in ’48 occupied Palestine are allowed to vote – but denied any real influence in Israel’s racist fake democracy. Some are trying to lower their expectations in order to achieve practical gains; others call for boycott.
In the first of two articles about the Israeli elections, which are due on October 27, I explained how the Zionist parties share support for genocide, ethnic cleansing, occupation and war on all fronts. Recently, international propagandists of Zionism, like “Reuters”, “The Economist”, and “The New York Times”, highlighted the role of the parties that represent Arab Palestinian society, to create the illusion that some real change is in the cards. They intentionally ignore the racist dynamics that totally control Israeli politics.
Apartheid starts with Demography
Israel defines itself as “A Jewish Democratic State”. In order to establish itself as such, it required a Jewish majority. In 1948, even before it was officially declared, Israel carried out a campaign of massacres and terror in order to create this Jewish majority, expelling some 80% of the native population in the 78% of the country that it succeeded in occupying. After the war ended, refugees that tried to return to their homes were shot at the border without warning. What remained of the native Arab Palestinian population was placed under strict military rule that lasted 18 years. The Western imperialists celebrated the ensuing state as a beacon of democracy in the backward Middle East.
Things became more complicated in 1967, when Israel occupied the rest of Palestine (the Gaza Strip and the West Bank), as well as Egypt’s Sinai and Syria’s Golan Heights. Striving to perpetuate its new occupations, Israel started with systematic efforts of ethnic cleansing and building Jewish settlements on robbed Palestinian and other Arab lands. In 1948, the Palestinians that fell under Israeli rule were a small minority, and most of them were granted formal citizenship, including the right to vote. After ’67, the Palestinian population under Israeli rule was much larger. According to estimations from recent years, Palestinians are a majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. To keep the regime’s status as “Jewish democracy”, Israel avoided giving its newly obtained subjects any civil status or national rights.
Some of Israel’s defenders try to promote the illusion that there is a democratic, “natural” Israel within its 1949-1966 borders (having also significantly expanded in 1949), as against the “problematic” occupations from 1967. In their distorted logic, the more thorough ethnic cleansing of 1948 made this occupation legitimate.
Since 1967 Israel rules over a single apartheid state – from the river to the sea. For its Jewish citizens there is only one, civilian, set of laws, decided by their elected parties in the Knesset. Only the Palestinians are divided between a small minority with formal citizenship inside the green line, and different systems of direct military rule in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians were further divided by the Oslo agreements to areas “A”, “B”, and “C”, with different rules for each area, and again in 2005 with the occupation’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and its conversion to an open-air prison under murderous siege and regular bombing. Jewish settlers in al-Khalil (Hebron), like all along the West Bank, are taking part in the elections, to “democratically” decide (together with their “liberal” brothers in Tel Aviv) how to rob and torture their Arab neighbours, who are not allowed any political expression.
Apartheid as a tool for Ethnic Cleansing
Israel’s apartheid is worse than its South African twin. In daily practice they are very similar, applying different laws to different sections of the population. But, while in South Africa apartheid was based on the exploitation of the native population, the ultimate goal of Zionism, from day one, was to get rid of the Palestinians and inherit their land, as expressed by the old Zionist saying: “A land without a people for a people without a land.”
This wish to make the Palestinians disappear is the driving force behind all the activities of the Israeli state. It is enshrined in the definition of the state as an expression of Jewish self-determination in its declaration of independence. It was further stressed by Israel’s 2018 “Nation-State Law”, by declaring that the right of self-determination in the state is reserved for Jews only. There are many other discriminatory laws and practices, but the state’s apparatus, Jewish-controlled local municipalities, police, the army, security services, government offices and the courts, all understand their overarching objective, even where no specific law explicitly mandates it.
This same tendency is also obvious in the composition of the Israeli economy. Most economic institutions, private, public, or governmental, promote Jewish employees and try to avoid employing Palestinians or keep them marginalized. Marginalized and “unwanted” Palestinian workers do not have effective bargaining power, even for the defence of their daily rights. Any sign of struggle or any political tension is used to further marginalize and persecute them.
As in all other aspects of life, the persecution of Palestinian workers reached horrific levels after October 7, 2023. Thousands of workers from Gaza who, after strict security clearance, had permission to work inside the Green Line, were arrested for the sole “crime” of being inside the Green Line. All of them were systematically tortured, some to the point of death.
In the West Bank, as independent economic activity is systematically suppressed by the occupation, some 200,000 workers relied on work inside the Green Line – a mainstay for providing the basic needs of the population. All work permissions for West Bank workers were abolished after October 7, together with intensified movement restrictions inside the territory and systematic attacks against Palestinian farmers.
Persecuting “illegal” workers from the West Bank is a top priority for Israel’s racist police and vigilantes acting under state supervision. Many are shot, wounded or arrested on their way to work. Almost every day dozens of workers from the West Bank are detained in their workplaces or makeshift shelters. The minimum punishment for working without permission was raised to two months’ imprisonment. Thousands of imprisoned workers do not even appear in the reports by human rights organizations about the plight of some ten thousand Palestinian political prisoners.
In its quest to get rid of the Palestinian workers, and with Jewish immigration turning negative since 2023, Israel’s preferred solution is to import foreign workers on temporary visas. Their numbers swelled from about 100,000 to about 300,000 over the last three years. Unlike other countries that import foreign labourers, Israel offers them no path to obtain permanent residency, as the holy grail remains keeping the state exclusively Jewish.
Apartheid also for Palestinians with Israeli Citizenship
Returning to ’48 Palestine, we find essentially the same discriminatory policies, even if the details and legal framework may differ. As elsewhere, the main struggle is over the land. All kinds of laws are used to confiscate land from its Palestinian owners, even those who stayed on their privately owned land after the Nakba and received formal Israeli citizenship.
In addition to land grabs, the racist “planning authorities” make it almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits within their own towns and villages. As a result, tens of thousands of houses are classified as “illegal” and are under threat of demolition. The demolition of Arab homes remains a major priority for Israel’s police, and is performed with excessive show of force – like military operations – in all Arab areas.
The worst situation is in the Naqab desert in the south of the country, where some 100,000 Palestinian Bedouins live in “unrecognized villages” and are systematically deprived of basic services like running water, electricity, roads, education, and healthcare. In the Naqab, whole villages are systematically destroyed in police operations. Israel’s courts regularly sanction the uprooting of villages from their historic lands for the clear purpose of building Jewish-exclusive settlements.
In addition to the direct attacks on Arab lands and homes, there is systematic discrimination against the Palestinian population inside the Green Line in all aspects of life: the economy, infrastructure, education, health, employment, social services, and more. Under pressure from the OECD, Israel periodically declares large “programs” to reduce the social and economic gaps from which its Arab citizens suffer. Soon after the declarations, we learn that those budgets were frozen, or transferred to the police or the army, and that the allocated funds were insufficient even to maintain the current miserable level of services.
In recent years, Israel’s economy is becoming ever more militarized. While all other sectors of the economy fade, Israel’s security services and arms manufacturing are gaining international recognition and windfall profits. Their surveillance systems and cybersecurity are perfected in special army units that retain total control over the lives of millions of Palestinians with no need to care for data privacy. Their weapon systems demonstrate their capabilities daily by devastating Gaza and sowing destruction in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Israel’s AI, built in cooperation with the biggest names of US tech, has proved its ability to justify the killing of anyone and everyone in Gaza. Fortunately, Palestinians are almost totally excluded from this murderous main branch of Israel’s economy.
Where Palestinians are allowed to work, usually in marginal jobs, they are systematically persecuted, sometimes simply for speaking Arabic among themselves or with Arab clients. But persecution is not limited to marginalized workers. Big parts of Israel’s health services depend heavily on Arab professionals: Palestinians comprise 25% of medical doctors, 27% of nurses, and 50% of pharmacists. Various reports expose systematic harassment against medical crews providing vital services – harassment that was prevalent before October 7, 2023, but has intensified significantly since.
The relation of the Israeli racist mob to Palestinian workers can be demonstrated by the case of Dia Saba, a top player in Israel’s premier league club Maccabi Haifa. In October 2023, his wife posted on her Instagram account the innocent statement: “there are children in Gaza, too.” There was a massive racist backlash against Mr Saba – a backlash that did not stop even after the post was promptly deleted and both he and his wife issued apologies. He was suspended from the team and had to leave to play abroad.
With all the discrimination and racist harassment, the most urgent and prevalent menace currently, making life unbearable for ’48 Palestinians, is the free hand given to criminal gangs to terrorize the population. Extortion, shooting and murder happen on a regular basis in almost all Palestinian towns, villages and neighbourhoods. The police are doing almost nothing to stop the gangs, and people are convinced that this inaction is a deliberate policy directed from above. When ordinary Palestinians feel that the police will do nothing to defend them, some turn to the gangs for protection, paying a high price and putting themselves in even more danger. When Islamic activists organized a network of committees to solve social disputes peacefully, this organization was outlawed by the state. The results are already widely felt through a deteriorating economic situation, personal and social insecurity, and rising emigration.
One Occupation – Political Divide and Rule
While the same policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing are applied to all Palestinians, Israel places each group of Palestinians under a distinct legal and political framework, directing them to separate paths in their struggle for rights. This strategy keeps the Palestinians divided and weak, allowing Israel to secure victories on separate fronts, as it dictates the rules of engagement.
By this division, the great Palestinian diaspora is excluded and the right of return for millions of refugees is not part of the negotiations. In fact, Yasser Arafat, the historic leader of the Palestinian liberation movement, was assassinated precisely because he refused to give up the right of return.
Gaza was designated for treatment by military brute force, long before the attacks of October 2023. The current Genocide was a catastrophe planned long in advance. In the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority is required to prove its loyalty to the occupation in order to continue dreaming of a future Palestinian semi-statehood. Its Western “donors” continually demand that it implement “reforms” to suit the tastes of the occupiers and to defend the occupation army and the settlers as they terrorize and rob the population.
For ’48 Palestinians, Israel offers participation in its “magnificent” democracy, but no real influence. Just after the ’48 Nakba, the Palestinians that succeeded to stay on their land, or internally displaced in the newly occupied territories, were a small minority, deeply traumatized by the massacres and expulsion of the majority of the population, and were kept under strict military rule. Initially the Israeli Communist Party was the only non-Zionist party that was active within this community, operating under severe restrictions and constant harassment. It played an important role in the recovery of the Palestinian society after the Nakba, but its perspective was integration into Israeli society and politics.
As the Palestinian society started to organize and struggle for its rights, Israel took additional steps to narrow the borders of its “democratic” playground. The first Palestinian party after the Nakba, the Al-Ard movement, was outlawed in 1964 and suppressed by harassment and detentions. In 1985, the law was changed to explicitly demand that any party wishing to run for the Knesset recognize the Jewish character of the state. Not that the state was democratic before, but since 1985 even proposing to make it democratic has been outlawed.
Abnaa Al-Balad (“Sons of the Country”) was formed by the convergence of local clubs and students’ movements in the late sixties and through the seventies. It was the local echo of the rise of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement. As a grassroots movement it managed to maintain a presence on the ground in spite of constant persecution.
In 1984 Abnaa Al-Balad proposed an alternative political path by calling, for the first time, for a boycott of the Knesset elections. It stressed that ’48 Palestinians are part of the Palestinian struggle and a shared future. With this position, the movement parted ways with the rightist elements that formed “The Progressive List for Peace”, which participated in the elections together with Israeli retired general Mati Peled. This was the moment that the movement decided its leftist political and ideological direction, and boycott of the Knesset remained a cornerstone of its political position ever since.
Many leaders of Abnaa Al-Balad were put under administrative detention after the movement led mass demonstrations in solidarity with the first Palestinian Intifada in 1987. The movement has consistently faced detentions and harassment, including the administrative detention of several members recently. Several of the movement’s publications were banned.
As Islamic movements surged across the Middle East, in the 1990s, so did the Islamic Movement become the most influential movement in ’48 Palestine. It concentrated on mobilizing wide support by preaching and providing much-needed social services. It developed a comprehensive strategy of self-reliance to fortify society in the face of a hostile government. Once again, the questions of participation in the Knesset elections proved polarizing, and led to a split, when the radical elements rejecting the Knesset formed “The Northern” branch.
In 2015, the “Northern” Islamic Movement was outlawed. Needless to say, it was not involved in any kind of violent struggle. Together with it, many civil organizations were outlawed, including media outlets, educational institutions, charity NGOS and their like. As part of this suppression, activists were sent to prison for peaceful activities like organizing buses for worshipers to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque —under the pretext that doing so constitutes “a service for an outlawed organization”.
Despite all the oppression and persecutions, the highest points in ’48 Palestinians’ political heritage are those historic moments when Palestinians united across artificial borders for a common political action. Land Day, March 30, 1976, witnessed the first general strike of the ’48 Palestinian population after the Nakba. On the same day Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza joined the general strike, as well as Palestinians in refugee camps in the neighboring states. Leaving six martyrs and hundreds wounded, the day is remembered as a moment of national renaissance and the reclamation of national identity.
In September-October 2000, in the first 10 days of the second intifada, ’48 Palestinians joined the general strike and fully participated in the national uprising. Israeli police adopted a new policy of deploying snipers to shoot and kill “agitators” in the demonstrations. The killing only added to the public furor. Another national day was added to the calendar and another generation received its political education.
The following special elections for Israel’s Prime Minister, in February 2001, was the first (and thus far only) example of mass boycott by the Palestinian population. As a result, General Ehud Barak of the Labor Party, the prime minister that was initially elected by Arab votes and went on to send the snipers, lost in a landslide. It helped that on this occasion there were no Knesset elections, only a vote for prime minister, meaning the Arab parties lacked their usual institutional motivation to drive out the vote.
The last high point of Palestinian unity was in May 2021, in what we call “The Dignity Uprising”. It started with the struggle against ethnic cleansing in Palestinian neighbourhoods in Al-Quds (Jerusalem), and as a response to settlers’ provocations in Al-Aqsa Mosque. It quickly sparked mass demonstrations across ’48 Palestine. At the same time, an armed confrontation erupted between Hamas and other militias in Gaza and the Israeli army. Even as police organized settler mobs to attack Arab neighbourhoods, the defensive mobilization of the Palestinian population proved stronger, and the confrontation concluded with a powerful sense of collective victory.
In the last three years, the Genocide in Gaza was accompanied by unprecedented wave of terror directed against the Palestinian population both in the West Bank and in ’48. Hundreds of political detainees from the ’48 areas, many of them for ordinary social media posts, many others under administrative detention with no indictment, are in the occupation prisons. They share the same prison cells and the same horrific experiences with thousands of political prisoners from the West Bank, as all “security prisons” became sadistic tortures camps for their hungry and sickened inmates. The unity of suffering in the hands of the criminal regime will inevitably leave an enduring impression on the formation of future Palestinian generations.
The narrowing specter of Israeli politics
The main dividing line in ’48 Palestinian politics is between a Palestinian orientation, organizing as an integral part of the Palestinian people under the occupation, and an attempt to take part in Israeli politics, mostly trying to gain some influence through representation in the Knesset.
The highest point of Palestinian influence through Israeli politics was during the days of the second Rabin government (1992 – 1995). In fact, it was the Palestinian intifada that forced Israel to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and negotiate with it. But Rabin needed the vote of the Arab parties in the Knesset to form and maintain his government and to pass the Oslo agreements. Even at this peak of their political influence, Rabin made a principle of keeping the Arab parties out of his government and out of the political negotiations about its policies. Still, relying on Arab votes was one of the main reasons for Israel’s extreme right to regard Rabin’s government as illegitimate, and for the incitement against him that led to his assassination.
Later Israeli governments, under Netanyahu, Barak and Sharon, effectively unraveled the Oslo agreements, continued the policy of settlements and ethnic cleansing, and formed an old-new Zionist consensus that there should be no independent Palestinian State. Over the last decades even the word “peace” was completely excluded from the Israeli political lexicon. The main reason for justification of Palestinian participation in the Israeli elections has vanished.
In a much-used propaganda theme, Zionist politicians accuse the Arab parties in the Knesset that they care more for the “alien” Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and not for the daily economic and civil rights of Arab citizens of Israel. Zionist leaders even like to blame this “failure” of the Arab leadership for the systematic discrimination against ’48 Palestinians. The Arab Knesset members use statistics and records to prove that they devote 90% of their time to try to improve the daily lives of their voters, but in most cases their pleas to state institutions fall on deaf or hostile ears.
In the upcoming elections, two “Arab” lists are competing. They are the only parties taking part that do not support genocide in Gaza, occupation and settlements in the West Bank and war on Iran. In both lists there are also Jewish candidates, but very few Jews are expected to vote for a list under Arab leadership.
As there is no perspective for political influence, and all that the Arab parties can hope for is to use their expected representation to defend the daily rights of the population, there is a consensus that the sharp political differences between the parties are irrelevant. You are not going to the Knesset to promote Islam, neither to achieve Communism or Socialism, nor promote an Arab or Palestinian agenda. It is even hard to claim that you can defend democracy in the Knesset. The common agenda that is expected by the voters from all Arab parties is to stop (or slow) house demolitions and land confiscation, to reduce discrimination, to bring budgets to local municipalities, and, above all, to force the police to stand up to the criminal gangs.
This strong public desire for unity in the struggle for daily rights erupted in Sakhnin this January. Sakhnin, at the center of the Galilee, has a long history as a center of Palestinian struggle. In January the people of Sakhnin led a national wave of strikes and protests against violence, gang rule and government complicity. On January 22, 2026, it culminated with the biggest Palestinian demonstration of the last years. At the end of the demonstration, the masses “hijacked” the leadership of the four parties that plan to participate in the election and made them sign a pledge to form a common list. Many of those calling for boycott of the elections also support the unity between the “Knesset parties”, to reduce internal conflicts and help to form a united front in the struggles against the racist policies of the government.
Apparently, the leaders of the parties themselves were less convinced in the need for unity. They continued a long and delicate struggle for party and personal positions inside the common list almost to the last days. For the parties themselves, representation is the Knesset ensures them access to state budgets, that are major providers for the daily functioning of the party apparatus.
Persuading voters to turn out is the hardest part for the parties. For this they must show that participation makes a difference. The problem is that for influence in Israeli politics you have to support one of the big Zionist blocks that compete to form the next government. It means that, according to the current political map, the highest hope for the Arab parties is to support General Eizenkot. The catch, however, is that Eizenkot declares day and night that he will not rely on Arab support. For him only a Zionist Jewish majority can form a legitimate Israeli government.
With these bleak prospects, our Arab parties managed to split on principled grounds and not on the division of the spoils of Knesset membership. The United Arab List, led by Mansour Abbas, the pro-Knesset split from the Islamic Movement, continues to explore the path of limitless compromises in order to be part of the next Israeli government. Till now his main success is to be at the center of the campaign posters of Netanyahu’s Likud, as the bogeyman leading the Zionist opposition into treason.
When Abbas agreed to extortionate conditions from Eizenkot, including “national service” for Palestinian youth to compensate for not serving in the Army, Eizenkot added a new condition that any participant in his government should support elimination of Hamas. Abbas still says that the only reason to be in the Knesset is to be part of the government. In a show of desperation, he called on his supporters to demonstrate outside the homes of those calling for boycott. Nobody showed up.
The other three parties, united in the “Joint List”, are “The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality”, led by the communist party and known by its Hebrew acronym Hadash, “The National Democratic Alliance”, also known by its Hebrew acronym “Balad”, a progressive-liberal outfit that was initially led by Azmi Bishara, and “The Arab Movement for Change”, a one-man show of all-weather-politician Ahmad Tibi. The leaders of the Joint List are sharply aware of the contradiction between standing by their principles and taking an active part in Israeli politics. They have been there before. After the September 2019 elections ended with a draw between General Benny Gantz, an arch-war-criminal that led the 2014 massacres of Gaza, and then and now PM Netanyahu, the Common List (then also including Abbas) recommended Gantz, trying to make a difference. The brave General was so scared of being supported by Arabs that he gave up on building a government, and, after another election, went to serve under Netanyahu. Now the Joint List tries to avoid explicit commitment, but says clearly that its ultimate goal is to bring an end to Netanyahu’s government.
In another significant precedent in the current elections, Israel’s supreme court approved the decision of the politicized elections committee to ban Sami Abu Shehadeh, the head of The National Democratic Alliance, from participating in the elections. To be more exact, the court’s president “advised” Abu Shehadeh to voluntarily withdraw his name from the Common List, as a majority of the court favored banning him. Abu Shehadeh, at the advice of his lawyers, agreed, to prevent a damning verdict that would be a binding precedent for future cases. His decision spared the court the formal ignominy of further narrowing the limits of Israel’s fake democracy, but the chilling effect of Palestinians’ freedom of expression was no smaller.
Abnaa Al-Balad movement, which used to wage a public campaign for boycott of the Knesset elections, limited itself to a single public declaration and participation in discussions organized by others. Still the main discussion in Palestinian social media is between those who try to mobilize the vote and the boycotters. In a society still traumatized by the genocide and the accompanying state terror against any public expression of resistance, people’s sense of shared destiny and wish for unity are the strongest sentiments.
The most significant effect of Palestinian participation in those elections is to make it almost inevitable that the elections will result in an impasse between the two competing Zionist camps. Captive to their racist rejection of any Arab participation in power, neither Netanyahu nor Eizenkot is likely to have enough “kosher” Jewish votes to form a government. Unlikely to overcome their racist principles, they might have to choose between swallowing all their campaign promises to form cross-camp coalitions or betting on other elections for a different draw of the cards.
