In this climate, the situation for Arab citizens is not easy. The question is how they will act during and after the upcoming elections—for better or for worse. 

Salman Masalha

A Guide for Arab Voters in Israel

It is often said that the upcoming elections are fateful. The truth that must be made clear to all citizens of Israel—regardless of religion, race, or nationality—is that elections in this country have been fateful ever since November 4, 1995. How have these days changed, and how have these elections changed, compared to the elections held following that day when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish assassin, fueled by messianic explosives supplied to him by rabbis, politicians, and others who prostrate themselves at the graves of their forefathers?
 
Just as it was then, so it is today: that same mantra keeps resurfacing. As is well known, the assassin justified Rabin’s assassination by claiming that the then-prime minister did not have a Jewish majority to carry out diplomatic initiatives with the Palestinian side, for the simple reason that his government relied on a blocking majority in the Knesset, which included Knesset members from Arab parties.
 
Now that same Benjamin Netanyahu is back—the man who, in the mid-1990s, stood on a balcony in Zion Square and spouted the arguments that led to Rabin’s assassination. And once again, rabbis and other messianists are repeating the exact same old tune, just in a different guise. The racist argument of a “Jewish majority” from those days has undergone only a cosmetic upgrade and has become a “Zionist majority.”
 
These days, the so-called “Change Bloc,” which claims to want to replace the current government, has embraced the argument of a “Zionist majority” as its own and incorporated it into its list of slogans. And to paraphrase the words of another Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir—who said, “The sea is the same sea, and the Arabs are the same Arabs”—one could retort to the bloc that supposedly prides itself on the title “Change” that the racism is the same racism, and the Zionists are the same Zionists.
 
In this climate, the situation for Arab citizens is not easy. The question is how they will act during and after the upcoming elections—for better or for worse. It is not easy to answer this question. Indeed, in the face of statements about a Jewish-Zionist majority, a growing sense of despair regarding Israeli politics—saturated with racist and exclusionary rhetoric—is taking hold among many. Moreover, past experience with Arab elected officials in the Knesset leaves little room for optimism. I admit that such a sense of despair one time in the past overwhelmed me and caused me to abstain from voting in elections. On another occasion, it led me to adhere to universal principles and cast a ballot for a specific party, even though I knew it would not pass the electoral threshold.
 
Despite all of the above, Arab citizens of Israel have been granted the opportunity to take control of their own destiny through democratic elections. This is a civil right that does not exist throughout the surrounding Arab world. They must not give up this privilege.
 
Therefore, they must seize the opportunity that has now presented itself before it is too late. For if a “full-fledged right-wing” government returns to power in the coming years, it may enact laws in the future that prevent Arab citizens from voting. As far-fetched as this may sound, they will justify it by claiming that only those who have served in the military are eligible to vote, or by resorting to all sorts of other notorious Zionist tricks, such as the Nation-State Law, and the like.
 
The distribution of seats indicated by the election polls leaves Arab citizens with no choice. After all, they have a history of high voter turnout in local elections, and now they have an opportunity to demonstrate how, unlike in the past, they are turning out in massive numbers at the polls.
 
The guidelines for selecting a party list should be as follows: A party that does not espouse the racist rhetoric of the Zionist Right, that seeks to replace the current government, that places women in leadership roles and in winnable seats, and that aims to be part of a future coalition to change the national discourse, promote peace, and take responsibility for the fate of all the country’s citizens.
This is an opportunity for change before disaster strikes.
 
Haaretz, 23.10.2026
 

For Hebrew, press here