In Israel's Election, Palestinian Citizens Weigh Fear Against Disillusionment

Ahead of Israel's upcoming general election, the country's Palestinian citizens are caught in a painful tension — the moral dilemma of voting on one side, and fear of an extreme right-wing government returning on the other.

Palestinian citizens make up about a fifth of Israel's population. Polls suggest the result is on a knife's edge, with no clear majority in sight for either side.

Laila Atamneh, 19, from the Beit Hanina neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem, is among the rare Palestinian Jerusalemites who are Israeli citizens and eligible to vote. On October 27, she will vote for the first time in her life.

Atamneh remembers her parents arguing at the dinner table every time Israel held an election. Her father would make the case for voting for an Arab-led electoral list; her mother always abstained.

Explaining her mother's reasoning, Atamneh said: “She thinks it feeds into the idea that Israel is a democracy and Palestinians have the same rights here – only to get extremely humiliated, and then get one of the worst governments ever, and be surrounded by fascists.”

Atamneh herself will vote. In her words, it is a responsibility to the millions of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, who will have no say in the next Israeli government but bear the brunt of its occupation. “I feel like I have to be these people's voice,” she said. “Not that one person is really capable of that much – but if this gives them one percent hope, then I will do it.”

Yet Atamneh, who speaks Arabic, said she struggles to follow election coverage in Hebrew. “I personally feel excluded from everything, that we're not even a part of the discussion,” she added. “It feels like none of the parties really address our generation of first-time Palestinian voters.”

Analysts say this mixed mood captures the wider picture among Palestinian citizens of Israel ahead of the vote. Few believe the system will serve them, but many fear another government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, who has overseen the war against Palestinians in Gaza since 2023.

According to the polls, neither Netanyahu's far-right-led bloc nor the self-styled Zionist opposition alliance will be able to govern without Ra'am and the Joint List, the two Arab-led parties. Whether fear outweighs disillusionment may therefore decide the outcome.

And if no one can form a majority in the 120-seat Knesset, new elections will be called — keeping the current Netanyahu government, described as the most hard-right in Israel's history, in place until then.

As'ad Ghanem, a political scientist at the University of Haifa, said: “This election comes in the context of the genocide and the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and the harsh state policies towards Palestinians in Israel. Palestinian citizens are really afraid. Their leadership is afraid, and this is real.”

For Hanan, a 36-year-old Palestinian Christian living in a Druze village in the Galilee, the danger feels ever closer to her doorstep. Last month, Israeli settlers from illegal settlements in the West Bank tried to build an illegal outpost near Majd al-Krum, a Palestinian community in the Galilee.

Against this backdrop, the turnout — or boycott — of Palestinian citizens in the October 27 vote could unexpectedly play a major role in shaping Israel's next government.