Palestinians in the West Bank Have 'No Voice' in Israel's Election

In Jabal al-Baba, a small Bedouin community east of Jerusalem, Israel controls almost every aspect of daily life for Palestinians, from building homes and accessing clean water to freedom of movement. When Israelis go to the polls on October 27, most of the nearly three million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank will have no say in choosing the government that governs their lives under occupation. Meanwhile, some 700,000 Jewish settlers living in roughly 300 illegal settlements and outposts across the territory, including occupied East Jerusalem, do have the right to vote.

"They treat us as if we don't exist," said Atallah al-Jahalin, a representative of the Jabal al-Baba community. "You have no right to vote. You don't have the rights you should have in a democratic state."

About 450 people live in Jabal al-Baba, a community in Area C, which makes up roughly 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and remains under full Israeli military and civil control. Many residents herd sheep and goats beside homes made of tin. Most belong to the Jahalin tribe, families who were expelled by Israeli authorities from the Naqab (Negev) desert in the years after the Nakba, the bloody ethnic cleansing of Palestinians carried out by Zionist militias in 1948.

"You are forbidden to build a house. You are forbidden to make a road. You are forbidden to build a school," al-Jahalin said. "Everything is forbidden for us."

According to al-Jahalin, residents regularly face pressure from Israeli soldiers and settlers, alongside repeated demolitions. "In the past few years, we have been through more than 100 demolitions in our community," he said. "We constantly have to rebuild our homes."

Israel says it demolishes Palestinian structures built without permits, permits that Palestinians can almost never obtain. The Israeli human rights group Bimkom found that authorities rejected more than 99 percent of Palestinian building permit applications in Area C between 2021 and 2024.

While Palestinians are restricted from developing, Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law, are expanding at a record pace. In April, Israel's security cabinet was reported to have approved 34 new settlements in a single decision, including retroactively legalized outposts, according to Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement monitoring group.

For al-Jahalin, the goal is clear: to push his community out to make way for settlers. "There is an Israeli plan to displace those who are here," he said. "All of this is a way of applying pressure. We have to leave these areas for the sake of settlement projects."

E1 exposes the limits of a change in government

In this month's vote, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and the far-right coalition it leads are in a tight race with a diverse opposition alliance that shares the stated goal of "preserving and strengthening Israel as a Jewish and democratic state."

The opposition bloc has not officially named a leader, but former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, of the centrist Yashar party, is seen as the most likely candidate for prime minister. Recent polls show the two blocs neck and neck, with neither appearing to win a majority. Meanwhile, most leaders of the Jewish-led opposition have ruled out a coalition with Arab-led parties representing Israel's Palestinian citizens, who make up about 20 percent of the country's population.

But for many Palestinians, a change at the top would mean little. Jamal Juma', coordinator of the grassroots Stop the Wall campaign, said decades of life under occupation have taught Palestinians not to expect a new government to change Israel's core policies. He pointed out that it was Israel's center-left Labor party, not the right, that began building West Bank settlements after 1967.

For Jabal al-Baba, the clearest test of what a change in government would mean is E1, the strip of land between Jerusalem and the illegal Ma'ale Adumim settlement where the community is located. The E1 project would connect the settlement to Jerusalem, bisect the West Bank and threaten to displace about 18 Bedouin communities, including Jabal al-Baba.

In August 2025, Israel gave final approval to 3,401 settlement homes in E1. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the project would "bury" the idea of a Palestinian state. A month later, Netanyahu declared "there will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us."

This year, the government put land there up for sale in two tenders, timed to advance before the election. Israel's attorney general then moved to delay part of the process until after the vote, and Smotrich is appealing the matter to court.

Ahead of the election, Eisenkot dismissed the idea of a Palestinian state as an "illusion," while expressing support for "strengthening" settlements. But asked about the E1 tenders in August, he said: "Not now." He called pushing the project forward a mistake with an international cost, and said far-right ministers and settler violence were harming Israel's standing abroad. That puts him at odds with the current government over the timing of E1, but not over the idea of settling the West Bank.

"There can be democracy, but only for Jews," said Kareem Jubran, director of field research at the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, which describes Israeli rule over Palestinians as apartheid. "Even when governments change, the system stays the same. If the left exists, it is a Zionist left. It doesn't have much influence in Israeli political life."

In Jabal al-Baba, where settlement expansion threatens the community's future, al-Jahalin reached the same conclusion. "It could be Eisenkot, it could be Netanyahu," he said. "Israel's policy has been put on the table. It doesn't matter who carries it out."

A system no election can dismantle

Whoever forms Israel's next government will still hold decision-making power over the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, a territory divided into three areas, A, B and C, under the 1990s Oslo Accords. Israel exercises the most direct control in Area C, but its restrictions reach across the West Bank.

"The Israelis are controlling everything in the West Bank, one thing after another," said Juma' of the Stop the Wall campaign, referring to Israeli control over movement between Palestinian cities and villages, as well as access to water, electricity and the territory's borders. "Every city, every village, they put a checkpoint at the entrance," he added.

Juma' also warned that continued fragmentation could turn the West Bank into isolated cantons, cutting Palestinian communities off from one another. "It will be like open prisons, like Gaza," he said. "But here we have different Gazas."

B'Tselem's Jubran said preventing that trajectory depends on international pressure, not the outcome of Israel's election. "If the international community is serious about taking practical steps to stop the E1 project, they can do it," he said. "As long as they don't, E1 will keep moving forward."

Back in Jabal al-Baba, the risk of forced displacement once again looms large. Al-Jahalin said his family was expelled from the Naqab once before, but he will not leave again. "I am not ready to live my father's life," he said. "I, as a Palestinian, will stay, whether I die or live on this earth."