How an election defeat triggered a carnival of racism against Palestinians
Lubna Masarwa writes in Middle East Eye on 3 November 2026:
A day before the Israeli elections, I was walking through a well-heeled, leafy neighbourhood in West Jerusalem, five minutes from President Issac Herzog’s official residence. I was on my way to interview an expert on Palestinian citizens of Israel, who were expected to vote in large numbers for the first time.
Three children – they could not have been more than seven or eight – jumped off the slides in a playground and ran towards me. One of them asked whom I was going to vote for. A funny question, I thought, coming from kids. I told them I would vote for the Joint List. The leader of the group asked, “What is the Joint List? Is it Bibi?” I said no, without explaining that it was an Arab bloc of parties.
The kid said: “So you’re not voting for Netanyahu?” I said no. He spat at me, and the other two gave me the middle finger. They must have thought I was a Jew defecting from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s camp. I wondered what they would have done if they knew I was Palestinian. Kids spitting at a middle-aged woman didn’t seem to bother any of the passersby.
To liberal Zionists, this election was a debate about the boundaries of Israeli democracy, and whether it could include us as Arabs. Wherever you look in the streets and highways, you will see neon signs, stickers, or big election billboards warning Jews about Palestinians. But the more I think about it, something far deeper is going on than mere hatred of a minority group, deeply entrenched though that is. The reaction to 7 October merely brought it out into the open.
Wherever you look in the streets and highways, you will see neon signs, stickers, or big election billboards warning Jews about Palestinians, and calling openly for more occupation, expulsion and deportation.