Unlike many in her community, Umaima Luwabneh is determined to vote in Israel’s elections. She will be doing so with her son, Iyad, foremost in her thoughts.
He was killed by police last year, in a wave of violent crime that has devastated Israel’s Arab community since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power.
One of his most controversial appointments was ultranationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir as minister in charge of the police. He has eight convictions, including for racism and for support of an anti-Palestinian terrorist organisation.
“There’s a very severe negligence on the part of the Israeli state at the moment,” Ms Luwabneh told The National, as she stood outside a modest gathering hosted by activists trying to increase Arab turnout in the elections in the northern city of Nazareth.
“I have come to help people understand that they have to go to vote. I would say it’s even mandatory,” she said during a coffee break between impassioned speeches and musical recitals, in both Hebrew and Arabic. “If we change the government hopefully there will be security and peace. If we don’t, it will be a big problem.”
Ms Luwabneh's story compelled her to join this small group of Arab and Jewish-Israeli campaigners. They were a somewhat incongruous sight in today’s divided country. Mr Ben-Gvir was mentioned dozens of times.
The activists have their work cut out for them this year. Palestinians with Israeli passports make up about 20 per cent of Israel’s population but, during the last elections, only about 50 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballots.
Pollster Dahlia Scheindlin told The National that the drive to encourage more people to vote could be working.
“There’s high expectation of high turnout relative to last time. We’re looking at 60 per cent, possibly more than that. I can’t predict it, but that’s what polls have been showing and it's very much backed by anecdotes. All my Arab friends, colleagues and people on the street are saying the same thing: we all want to go vote and that there’s a huge fear factor about Itamar Ben-Gvir being in the next government.”
If they head to the polls en masse in 2026, they will form a significant bloc in Israel’s complicated electoral mathematics, where one seat in the 120-seat Knesset can make or break a coalition. As polls continue to predict a deadlock, their vote has become one of the most closely watched trends in the lead-up to election day.
Palestinian citizens of Israel are descendants of Palestinians who stayed inside the territory after Israel was created in 1948. They have long complained of discrimination and are often attacked, particularly during election cycles, by Israel’s growing right wing.
Mr Netanyahu’s coalition has brought about troubles of a different magnitude. A crackdown on freedom of expression, a rise in attacks and intimidation from the far-right, underinvestment, settler and military violence in the occupied West Bank and the devastation of the war in Gaza are some of the issues the community has had to confront during the government’s term.
Despite the historically tough odds and today’s grim reality, the conference in Nazareth tried to inspire optimism. It was held under the banner “This Time We Can” and organised by the Israeli-Palestinian activist group Standing Together. The movement briefly fielded a political party in the election campaign, although the party was disbanded amid fears it could further split the vote on Israel’s beleaguered left. Now the group is focusing its efforts on getting Arab Israelis to vote.
The room was nearly full, mostly with older citizens. Clatters and shouts from a nearby boxing gym could be heard outside. The vast Church of the Annunciation loomed in the distance near the once-bustling old city. Tourist numbers have crashed since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks.
Those present listened patiently and asked questions. Nonetheless, the meeting had less energy than the packed election events organised by Israel’s surging far-right, which heads to the polls propelled by the momentum of four years of ideological gains, often at the expense of Palestinians, whether or not they are Israeli citizens.
Even in this heavily Palestinian area, the reach of the far-right was clear. On the main roads leading to Nazareth, most election posters were for the Arab parties. The exception was for Mr Netanyahu’s Likud Party, for whom there are posters even inside the city that condemn Arab parties and left-wing Jewish candidates.
Next to a group of them outside Nazareth, young religious Jewish activists, probably too young to vote in the coming elections, were carrying flags and signs in support of the government, as Arab commuters made their way back home. The same posters are found throughout the settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Part of Israel’s far-right agenda over the past four years has been an intense campaign of delegitimisation of Arab parties, spearheaded by figures in the government.
Many Arab politicians and parties were barred from running by the Central Elections Committee earlier in the year. One representative, Sami Abu Shehadeh, withdrew from the race, after Supreme Court judges on appeal told him a majority of the panel would disqualify him.
The court also considered the CEC’s decision to disqualify a far-left Jewish member of the Knesset and two Arab political parties, Ra’am and the Joint List. It eventually overturned the CEC’s bans.
It is an astonishing state of affairs, just four years after Arab parties formed a crucial part of the broad “government of change” coalition led by current candidates Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid, and as supporters of Israel continue to trumpet their country as the only democracy in the Middle East.
And now, many of the leaders of the opposition, including some of the very same Jewish politicians who sat with Arabs last time round, have promised they will never do so again, even though the community’s votes might well be crucial to forming an opposition government.
Faced with these hurdles, participants at the conference tried to keep attendees focused on the point of voting.
Political scientist Dr Thair Abu Rass, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, told the crowd that these were “the most important elections of our lives”.
He mentioned the massive surge in murders under Mr Ben-Gvir, as well as the government’s attack on Israel’s judiciary, which drew massive street protests before the Gaza War. It was not an issue that animated many, but Mr Abu Rass argued that weakened courts in an increasingly right-wing Israel would be a disaster for Palestinian citizens.
“It will be the law of the majority, the law of the strongest. We live in a state where the right is a majority, even if Netanyahu leaves,” he said. "If they succeed in Gaza, they will succeed in the West Bank, then in Jerusalem. After that it will be us.”