Palestinian election turnout exposes Israel’s attitude towards its Arab citizens

For many people, Israel was always the only democracy in the region, a liberal democracy. And now, when they are confronted with a reality, which is you can take Palestinian votes as equal as Jewish votes, most parties are saying they are just not equal and we cannot count on them. Certainly, very few people believe that Palestinian citizens would vote the way they did. And that's, I think, a big surprise. If we go into the Jewish vote, we could talk, for example, about the decrease on Shas, the Orthodox Sephardim, or Eastern Party, but the vote of the Palestinians. And this surprise changed all the calculations there. It's important. Why? Because Palestinians are being told now, no, we're not a democracy. Your vote really don't count. Why? If you look at right-wing media in Israel, they are saying, but they are anti-Zionist. You expected them to be Zionists after... 80 years' background of ethnic cleansing, of separation, of dozens of discriminatory laws. They are expressing themselves with the elements that they were given. And because of this, and because Israel was not prepared for that scenario, now Netanyahu, in order to remain in power, is trying to bring so many allegations, including foreign funding and other elements, that they are very telling of one thing, or actually two things. The racism, because it's not like Palestinians could voluntarily go out and vote, it's not like they understand how democracy works, it's not that they are responding to the far right in Israel and all the attempts, especially after the Gaza genocide that became existential for Palestinians all over historic Palestine, no, for them, someone had to pay them. They had to bring a scapegoat, but on the other side. It's a fact that Benjamin Netanyahu would do anything possible to remain in power, so people should be very careful about what's going to happen within the next few days, both locally and regionally.