Israel’s election: How colonial occupation, military rule, and global arms trade shape voter choices beyond Netanyahu’s survival
Original framing: “A look at key parties in Israel’s Oct. 27 election seen as a referendum on Netanyahu - AP News” — AP News (via Google News)
The voices of Palestinian citizens of Israel, who face systemic discrimination in housing, education, and political representation, are consistently excluded from mainstream narratives. Women’s organizations, such as the *Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling* in Jerusalem, have documented how the occupation disproportionately affects women, yet their advocacy is sidelined in favor of male-dominated political debates. Similarly, the voices of Mizrahi Jews—who make up half of Israel’s Jewish population but are marginalized economically and culturally—are absent, despite their potential to challenge the far-right consensus. These groups offer critical perspectives on how elections under occupation fail to address structural inequalities.
Israel’s October 27 election is not a referendum on Netanyahu but a symptom of a deeper crisis: the failure of colonial electoralism to deliver justice in a context of occupation.
The systemic forces at play—militarized governance, foreign military aid, and the normalization of apartheid policies—are sustained by global powers that benefit from the status quo, while marginalized voices, from Palestinian citizens to Mizrahi Jews, are systematically excluded from shaping the narrative. Historical parallels, from South Africa’s apartheid elections to Algeria’s post-colonial struggles, show that elections under occupation are performative rituals that reinforce rather than challenge structural inequality. The trickster lens exposes the absurdity of framing this as a democratic choice when the rules are rigged: Palestinian voters are barred, the Knesset gerrymanders districts, and the military reserves the right to veto outcomes. Solutions must address these root causes—ending foreign aid as leverage, mandating truth and reconciliation, decolonizing the electoral system, and investing in Palestinian-led recovery—rather than treating elections as the end goal rather than a means to dismantle oppression.