Israeli elections: Starkest example of an apartheid system

Usually, an apartheid state, or any country that applies discriminatory measures, would do everything in its power to hide its malicious policies and intentions. But in the case of apartheid Israel, there is no such pressure to conceal anything. The latest and one of the starkest examples is the Israeli elections, where Israeli settlers living in the occupied West Bank will be allowed to vote while Palestinians in the same territory will not, demonstrating what an apartheid regime looks like in practice.

As Israelis prepare to cast their ballots on Oct. 27, nearly 3 million Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank will have no say in choosing the government that practically rules their lives, of course against their will, and who endure its fascist policies daily, including its tireless efforts to uproot them from their land and annex it, as if the West Bank were an empty land with no indigenous inhabitants.

This is an imagined assumption about raising the issue of the Palestinian people’s participation in the Israeli elections, whereas Palestinians won’t give Israel any form of legitimacy over controlling them. The irony here is that while Israel loudly proclaims its annexation of the West Bank, it could at least pretend to offer equal rights to all those living under its control without discrimination. Israel, instead, chooses the most brazen path to present itself as a genuine apartheid entity that seeks Jewish, Zionist supremacy over the indigenous people of the West Bank, while systematically working to dispossess them of their land.

Apartheid, biased democracy

Israel’s claim to democracy rests on a simple but unspoken rule: It applies only to those the state considers part of the national collective. For Jewish Israelis, whether living inside the Green Line that separates Israel from occupied territories or in illegal settlements deep in the West Bank, the system offers full political rights, representation and a direct say in the government’s direction. For Palestinians, whether they hold Israeli citizenship or live under military occupation (as currently in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza), the system offers something entirely different: permanent minority status, legalized discrimination, and a limited political ceiling that cannot be broken. The difference is not accidental; it is the logical outcome of a state that defines itself, by law, as belonging to one ethnic group.

That logic is not merely rhetorical; it is embedded in legislation. Israel’s 2018 Nation-State Law declared that “the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people,” effectively constitutionally enshrining Jewish supremacy. Since October 2023, the Knesset has passed more than 30 laws that deepen this supremacy, targeting Palestinian citizens and residents through restrictions on speech, citizenship, family unification and political organizing, among others. In the current election round, the Central Elections Committee attempted to disqualify all Arab-majority parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, while allowing the far-right Jewish party Otzma Yehudit and others to remain on the ballot. Although the Supreme Court overturned the ban, the attempt was not an anomaly but a recurring feature of a system that has never fully accepted Palestinians as equal participants in its political life.

Blocking Palestinian elections

Israel’s exclusion of Palestinians from its own elections is compounded by its systematic sabotage of Palestinian democratic processes. In 2021, when Palestinians planned their first elections in 15 years, Israel refused to allow voting in occupied East Jerusalem. Eventually contributing to cancelling the elections and denying the Palestinians their right to vote.

Israel’s interference in Palestinian elections extends beyond denying Palestinians a vote in its own elections; it actively sabotages Palestinian democratic processes. In April 2026, Israeli forces raided Balaa near Tulkarm and detained candidate Bilal Jitawi for 10 hours, pressuring him to withdraw by falsely claiming he had Hamas backing, though he was running as an independent. This is one of dozens of similar incidents across the West Bank, where candidates are arrested, threatened and coerced into abandoning their political aspirations. The message is unmistakable: Palestinian elections will either serve Israel’s interests or not happen at all.

Even the recent announcement of Palestinian elections, scheduled for November but cancelled by a decision from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, would never have been allowed to proceed, as Israel would have blocked it, employing all the dirty tactics it routinely uses against Palestinians to deny them their right to vote and renew the legitimacy of their leadership. Any genuine Palestinian electoral process fundamentally contradicts the essence of Israel’s expansionist agenda: the systematic denial of Palestinian existence itself.

Global allowance of apartheid

For decades, the international community, including states, international organizations and United Nations bodies, has watched Israel’s exclusionary system unfold while offering little more than statements of concern. The same governments that fund Israel’s military, trade with its economy, and shield it from accountability are the first to praise its elections as “the oasis of democracy” or “the only democracy in the Middle East.” As long as the world treats Israeli elections as a democratic exercise rather than what they truly are, a political ritual that governs millions of Palestinians without their consent, the apartheid system will only deepen.

Furthermore, the international media bears particular responsibility. In every Israeli election round, headlines herald Israel’s vote as a testament to democracy, ignoring its denial of Palestinians’ right to vote and its crackdown on Palestinians to sabotage their own elections. This framing legitimizes apartheid by dressing it in democratic language. A democratic state cannot simultaneously be an occupying power; the two are contradictory. Israel’s claim to democracy, therefore, is a claim far from touching reality. Until the world names this system for what it is, apartheid, no election in Israel can be called fair or free, and no democracy can be claimed by a state that denies millions the most basic right to vote.