In Israel’s election, the real test is whether citizens can vote without fear

Elections in Israel are being held today, but the political violence surrounding them have been going on for weeks.

In mid-October, dozens of masked settlers descended on Palestinian farmers in the West Bank village of Abu Falah during the annual olive harvest. They set groves on fire, attacked residents, and beat Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine, who was visibly wearing press credentials, leaving her hospitalized. The attack was another horrifying example of the escalating violence Palestinians and those working to protect them are facing every day.

Just a day earlier, with less than two weeks before Israelis go to the polls for arguably the most consequential election in the nation’s history, around a dozen far-right activists stormed the campaign headquarters for the main Arab party set to run in the elections. The violence was led by two well-known supporters of Itamar Ben Gvir and his Jewish Power Party. Political violence isn’t something Israel is bracing for on Election Day. It is already part of the story. The question is whether—or maybe simply how—it will reach the polling stations.

These incidents are different, but the threat and violence facing Palestinians, reporters, and even diplomats in the West Bank (where Palestinians do not have rights) is made of the same political ingredients, and often perpetrated by the same groups of people, as the violence happening inside of Israel (where they do). Political violence is already part of the story. The question is whether—or perhaps how—it will reach the polling stations.

Israelis will call every election the most consequential, but these upcoming elections truly are. They are Israel’s first since the horrific Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023. They will decide Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future. And it will be the first time Israelis can judge, at the ballot box, the government that was in power that day and everything it has done since.

And because the stakes of this election are so high, so too is the likelihood of violence. And if, in the past, elections were a celebration of democracy, more and more they are becoming times to brace against threats to that self-same democracy. As someone who leads an organization whose mission is to promote equality and strengthen Israeli democracy, I am profoundly concerned. Because those threats to democracy—from both inside and outside the country—are growing by the day.

First, there are threats from the outside—there, Israel is no different than the United States. Bot armies from Iran (and China and Russia) are doing their utmost to deepen the internal divisions inside Israel—like the massive divide between secular Israelis and religious ones, a divide that already threatens our society with something akin to civil war. Recently, the head of Israel’s domestic security service warned lawmakers explicitly about these bot armies. To no avail. Israel’s state comptroller found Israel “completely unprepared” for foreign influence campaigns.

Then there are the threats from inside. The same day as the Tel Aviv attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich announced that they would send some 2,000 activists to polling stations in Arab towns, as “observers” to guard against voter fraud.

There won’t be fraud because there has never been fraud. There are already official observers from every party in polling stations across the country. When the body that oversees Israel’s elections looked into Arab voter fraud in the last round of elections, they found none. This is a move to delegitimize the Arab voters’ voices and energize the far-right base. We have seen this before. In 2015, on Election Day, Netanyahu warned supporters that “the Arabs are heading to the polls in droves.” In 2019, Likud placed hidden cameras in polling stations in Arab towns. The message, as evident through these actions, has been consistent: Arab citizens are a threat, their vote should be suspect.

But we know that democracy is measured by minority rights—and nowhere is that right more critical than at the ballot box. And in these elections, the Arab vote is critical—part of the threat against them comes because their voice matters.

And so they work to intimidate—to threaten, if not use, outright violence. Nobody has to stuff a ballot box to sway the vote. They just have to convince a voter in one of Israel’s towns—Umm al-Fahm or Rahat, say—that the trip to the polls isn’t worth the risk. A crowd of strangers with cameras at the door to a polling place can do that—or even just a rumor that there will be one.

Protecting every citizen’s vote is not a partisan position, no matter which party it happens to help. It is the bare minimum of democracy. A Jewish voter in Tel Aviv and an Arab voter in Nazareth have the same right to walk into a polling station without being followed, filmed or challenged. If Israel can’t guarantee both of them that, the result will be a tainted democracy, whoever wins.

Of course, on the ground, civil society organizations are hard at work. Arab citizens do not feel that they can rely on the government to protect them, so organizations are building local networks in Arab towns and mixed cities, so that when trouble starts at a polling station, people know who to call. They are helping municipalities respond to threats quickly, and in real time, so that a confrontation at the door doesn’t become the image that keeps a neighborhood home. And they are running systems for citizens to report disinformation, so that false claims about polling places, hours, or “fraud” get flagged and answered before they spread.

None of it is glamorous, but civil society has and will always be democracy’s immune system. Right now, twelve days out from the vote, that immune system is in overdrive. As the world waits for the results, I hope it watches the process too, because how Israel treats its Arab citizens at the ballot box will say more about the health of our democracy than just about anything else.

Mickey Gitzin is the Acting CEO of the New Israel Fund.