Israel | View from abroad

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to his supporters in Jerusalem early Wednesday morning. Photo: AFP/John Wessels The doubling of the votes of Palestinian parties is probably the biggest surprise of the elections in Israel. According to the current count, the “Joint Arab List” (Raam) party alliance is likely to have won up to 19 parliamentary seats. 84 percent of Palestinians eligible to vote cast their votes despite polling stations that were sometimes overcrowded, more than ever before. The election is a paradigm shift because young Arab Israelis are participating for the first time in the politics of a country with which they often have a divided relationship.

Reporting in neighboring Arab countries has changed. Opposition candidates have been portrayed in detail in recent weeks, and political observers from Israel have had their say. What was frowned upon years ago has now become the norm since many Jewish activists, academics and journalists protested against the destruction of the entire infrastructure of the Gaza Strip.

In Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf states, political observers discussed on Monday evening whether the Palestinian parties should join a possible coalition of Gadi Eisenkot's "Jashar" party. At the moment this seems unlikely. But not only because the opposition leader Eisenkot categorically ruled out this during the election campaign.

TV channels such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya are reporting on the election campaign and the course of the elections more objectively than ever before. The word “Israel” has also become established in news broadcasts. Years ago, in Libya, Qatar and Iraq, “Zionist Entity” or other derogatory terms were mostly common.

Alghad TV from Egypt talks about the “Palestinians in the country”. The report was about the future greater influence of Palestinians with Israeli passports and their fight against racism. During Netanyahu's 19 years in power, this had grown steadily. And ultimately culminated in his blunt warning to voters that Arab politicians' participation in government would be a risk to national security.

This was also noticed in the Arab media - as were the stance and campaign speeches of the opposition candidates on the situation in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and in the areas captured by Israel in Lebanon and Syria.

Arab TV commentators particularly shed light on the "Dahijeh" doctrine of former Chief of General Staff Gadi Eisenkot: Eisenkot wanted to break all resistance by using overwhelming force against civilians in Dahijeh, the predominantly Shiite suburb of Beirut. The majority opinion from Casablanca to Baghdad is that the bombing of entire residential areas and villages in Lebanon that he ordered was a war crime. The fact that the Eisenkot doctrine was subsequently implemented on a much larger scale in the Gaza Strip is a dilemma for Palestinians in Israel and the Arab world.

But pragmatism and the desire for an Arab voice in a future government still prevail. The alternative would be to continue the course of hardliners such as Security Minister Itamar Ben Gwir or Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Both lost many votes, but did not give up the plan to expel as many Palestinians as possible from Gaza, the West Bank and perhaps also from Israel.

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