This story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.net/en/.

This story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.net/en/.
License: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/
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Netanyahu vs not Netanyahu: Israel's absurd election fiasco
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Date: None

Another general election just concluded in Israel, the fourth in two years. Beyond the clichés of ‘Groundhog Day’ or ‘election fatigue’ affecting the turnout, not many are actually talking about the utter absurdity of the whole thing.

The major election, held on 23 March 2021, which directly impacts nearly 14 million people living between the ‘river and the sea’, where over a third are denied voting rights, comes down to whether or not one man gets to remain as prime minister.

Here we are, facing a scenario in which Benjamin Netanyahu, known as Bibi, yet again emerges with a very slim lead – but in no more favorable position to form a new government than after previous elections. If anything, the Israeli electorate has chosen to veer more towards the Right, adopting more nationalist religious and Zionist lines in what is surely to be detrimental to the Palestinian populace.

While Palestinian parties in the Knesset will definitely feel the impact of their continued irrelevance, residents of Jerusalem such as myself are living out absurd scenarios. Far-Right anti-Arab parties such as the Religious Zionist party, the conservative anti-LGBT, Noam, and the Kahanist, Otzma Yehudit, are entering the Knesset with six seats together, with blessings from Netanyahu himself.

The far Right, such as Likud and the Religious Zionist party, was heavily dependent on a high turnout in my city of Jerusalem, which, in the end, did not transpire. However that turnout is almost exclusively Jewish as we Palestinians are denied voting rights.

It often fascinates me how many fail to see the absurdity of the electoral fiasco the way we see it at the centre of it all, in Jerusalem.

This could be a storyline straight out of a novel by Franz Kafka or Albert Camus.

A Palestinian backdrop

Us Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, at the centre of another election storm, find ourselves at the receiving end of campaigning pledges accompanied by all forms of hate and vitriol. Most contending Zionist parties are in agreement in considering our city as their eternal ‘undivided’ capital. They debate our basic rights and potential displacement, but never have us engage in the process. All we can do is sit back and watch as our Jewish neighbours go to the polling stations and vote extremists in.

While many of us in Jerusalem are too detached from the noise of the elections, others are anxiously anticipating an impending deadline for eviction. In Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, 28 families were handed eviction notices earlier this year. The court-ordered evictions are due to take place no later than 2 May in a move that serves the bigger plot of emptying Jerusalem of its Palestinian population.

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/netanyahu-vs-not-netanyahu-israels-absurd-election-fiasco/