Reported by Al Jazeera
After winning a record number of parliament seats, Palestinian-led parties face campaign against them.
Israel has officially certified its election results – delivering a blow to right-wing claims of a stolen vote – but the record 19 seats captured by Palestinian-led parties have triggered aggressive police raids, arbitrary arrests, and targeted interrogations by state security apparatuses.
The electoral gains made by the parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel – the Joint List and the United Arab List (Ra’am) – could give the Zionist opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the upper hand in forming the next government, if they choose to work with the Arab parties.
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Meanwhile, Netanyahu and his allies have portrayed the increased vote share for the Palestinian-led parties as the result of illegality , a+nd say they represent Jewish Israelis.
Political analyst Mamoun Abu Amer told Al Jazeera that the political backlash was preplanned.
“From the beginning, it was clearly a systematic campaign when Arab citizens mobilised heavily, especially in the villages, the Naqab and the Bedouin areas,” Abu Amer said. He noted that the heavy turnout deeply shocked the Israeli political establishment, prompting Netanyahu to launch a smear campaign to discredit the democratic process.
Ahmad Tibi, leader of the Ta’al Party – which is part of the Joint List – shared a similar analysis.
“There is no indication that the elections were manipulated in the Arab towns, as everyone expected the voting rate to be high this time in advance due to the bad reality created by this government for our public,” Tibi told Al Jazeera. “On the contrary, there was a press report on Israel’s Channel 12 television revealing that the Likud party, led by Netanyahu, had prepared and readied a file before the elections to invent this falsehood when the results were issued, because they know with absolute certainty that they will lose the elections.”
The intimidation campaign against Palestinian citizens of Israel materialised through aggressive police actions on election day. As reported by The Jerusalem Post, police arrested several Ra’am supporters for alleged vote-buying, which Likud immediately invoked to claim an attempt…