Reported by Al Jazeera
Palestinian citizens of Israel say Arab parties’ success in recent elections has led to growing pressure.
Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel – On election day, Lama Yassin, 31, drove to polling stations in her hometown of Arrabeh, where Palestinian citizens of Israel make up an overwhelming majority, inspired by what she was witnessing.
“You would see families coming to the polls together, grandparents and grandchildren,” she said. “It was the first time in a really long time that I felt there is hope – hope of a change.”
More from the original report
The overwhelming Arab turnout in the October 27 Israeli election won the Arab parties a record 19 seats in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
Thabet Abu Rass, an expert on Jewish-Arab relations in Israel, had predicted the Arab parties would be impossible for Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc to ignore: Their seats push it past the 61-seat threshold for a ruling coalition.
Instead, Yassin and others saw Israeli channels invite “Jews to talk about Arabs and Arab voter turnout”, she recalled, with almost no Arab guests.
“The whole conversation was about how dangerous these Arab voters are.” The “most disgusting term” she saw online, however, was the repeated refrain of “election terrorism” on Channel 14, the hard-right, pro-Netanyahu station.
Within a day of the vote, Likud and figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir accused the Arab parties of stealing the election through “bribery, threats, violence, forgeries”. The accusations have continued even after the Central Elections Committee and the Israeli police said they found no sign of organised tampering.
Distraught, Yassin posted an Instagram video that went viral among Palestinians, capturing the doublespeak of Israelis they so often hear:
“When it suits you, we are brothers and friends. When it suits you, we are a symbol of coexistence. When it suits you, you go around the world boasting about our integration into Israeli society.
“But the moment we demand to have influence, to shape policy, and to take part in decision-making – suddenly, our very presence becomes a threat.”
More than a week after the election, Jaffa’s Ajami neighbourhood offers both the history leading up to – and…