As Israel Votes Again (and Again), Arabs See an Opportunity

It's fascinating that Jewish settlement expansion in Judea and Samaria is so often assumed to be an obstacle to peace, yet Arab-Israelis voting is celebrated in this article. Here's an idea: what if a "Palestine" carved out of Judea and Samaria had a Jewish (and even Christian or Druze) minority that also had the full right to vote and be civic equals? What if this "Palestine" also had free speech, regular elections, celebrated its LGBTQ community and policed honor killings and denounced terrorism? Sounds really peaceful, now doesn't it? But no, so much easier to place all the blame on Netanyahu and demand that a future Palestine have zero Jews in it as a pre-condition, to say nothing of not being even vaguely democratic or supporting minorities of any kind; and why bother even mentioning the prevalence of honor killings, which tends to crash the Wokentosh. No, I'm sure that incessantly criticizing Bibi and demanding just the right concession from Israel will cause the Magical Mystery Palestinian Partner for Peace to emerge any moment now and make all that gnarly Palestinian misogyny, homophobia, despotism, and glorification of terrorism just go away.

Unless more of them tend to participate in elections by voting, they will be seen as nothing more than flies on the wall. This is pretty much the case in a lot of countries that happen to be democracies. In the end, only those who voted will actually matter when it comes to elections. However, I'm tired of hearing certain anti-Israel fanatics claim that Arabs, Druze, Bedouins, and other minorities are denied the right to vote in Israel when that's not even the case. In reality, it's the fact that some of them still don't want to be part of or even vote for anyone that will be either the Israeli PM or have a seat in the Knesset due to some still having an anti-Israel bias. Groups deciding not to vote isn't the same as them being denied a right to vote. BTW, minority groups living in Israel do have the right to vote in elections and even run for political office. Overall, don't blame this on the Jews or Zionists for their inaction when involving elections in Israel.

Considering the results form the last election, I was surprised to find out that they refused to join a coalition.

This is a hopeful story. That Arabs are willing to vote and that Israelis want those votes.

Two things. One. The Bedouin people chose to live in traditional nomadic style villages. The 'open air living room' in the 'tent' or 'shack' is within their proud nomadic cultural lifestyle. Two, Israeli Arabs have the exact same rights as Jewish Israelis. Their towns have the wealthy, middle class and poor neighborhoods as anywhere else in Israel. Their family members are doctors, lawyers, dentists, construction workers, supermarket chain CEO's and everything else Jewish Israels enjoy in the most fair minded liberal democracy in the Middle East. Arab Israelis 'annihilating' Jewish men,women and children sounds more like another Middle Eastern country's rant. Look for proof of Israeli coexistence on the ground and running! Look in hospitals, courts, on construction sites, look at the bus drivers, police officers and in the armed forces. We're good.

What? Israeli Arabs vote? This is a violation of Apartheid.

This should be a lesson to Palestinians. Engage and use the legal means you have to negotiate instead of futile aggression and terrorism and idiotic time wasting with the UN

Israeli Arabs are citizens of Israel and have the full right to vote. A right even Arabs in other Arab countries don’t have. Yet the world continues to criticize Israel.

Wouldn’t it be great if an Israeli government could be formed as a coalition including just Blue and White with the Arabs. This could put the extremists completely out of power! It might even stimulate a sane dialogue leading to a two state solution.

If the Joint List MK numbers are large, then it would be more difficult to build a coalition government without them. At that time, they would extract important concessions like uniform civil and economic rights for it Arab citizens.

This article gives me hope. God knows we need some that. I may not know the particular positions of the alternate Israeli candidates in this upcoming 3-peat. But I do know that Netanyahu is a crooked criminal, and needs to be deposed and prosecuted. That new portions of an electorate want to change their country by changing hearts and minds through the ballot box, rather than with weapons, is tremendously hopeful to me. That more women find agency, and enter the political process, wherever and whatever it is, I also find tremendously hopeful. I wish them well.

It is a testament to Israel that Israeli Arabs have more freedom of speech ( newspapers that are often critical of the government without anyone thinking this is strange), freedom of demonstration ( often against the government), religion, and many other things which are not possible in the Arab lands. The fact that Arabs can organize their own political parties ( there are several), unite to vote them into the knesset, criticize the government and work with and against the majority factions, makes me proud that Israel, with all its problems, still is the beacon of democracy for the Middle East and much of the world. In a unanimous decision, Israel's Supreme Court struck down on Thursday a law that blocks single men and gay couples from using surrogacy to have children — giving the Knesset a year to pass a new law. Everyday news like this comes out to let us know that Israel is making progress in leading the world. The Jewish Homeland is making life better for all of its citizens.