JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Now to Israel, where the vote count in Tuesday's elections is nearly complete. So far, neither Benjamin Netanyahu's party nor the opposition led by Gadi Eisenkot has the political majority needed to govern, and the country's two major Arab-led parties are projected to win a record number of seats between them, which could make them pivotal to the formation of the next government. The results follow a surge in turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel. We wanted to know what this could mean for a group that makes up one-fifth of the country's population. So we called up Palestinian Canadian human rights attorney Diana Buttu, and I started by asking her how significant this could be for Israeli politics.
DIANA BUTTU: This is huge. Look, we're talking about nearly 20% of the population who, since the formation, since the foundation of the state of Israel, have been marginalized, and they've been marginalized in everything from the ways that they're discriminated against to the ways in which their political participation takes shape. And we see it already. Netanyahu, who's actually decreased - his bloc has gone down significantly since the last election - declared victory. And the reason he declared victory is because he's saying that these votes don't count.
SUMMERS: I mean, one might imagine that this could potentially give Arab-led parties real, considerable leverage in coalition negotiations. I know this is a bit hypothetical, but what sorts of changes could that representation realistically deliver for Palestinian citizens of Israel?
BUTTU: Well, they made their demands clear, and their demands are simply equality and justice. And if we break it down even further, there have been a few things that they've been pushing for and asking for. The first is that there are a number of laws that are on their face discriminatory. They privilege Israel's Jewish citizens over Palestinian citizens. And so they've asked for a repeal of those laws. But then there's things that are much more technical. There's been a law that was passed a few years ago that allows for the demolition of Palestinian homes. These are homes of citizens. And Israel has used that law to demolish 5,500 Palestinian homes with another 33,000 that are slated for demolition. They've asked for that law to be canceled.
And the third thing is they've said the level of organized crime has skyrocketed to the point where none of these murders that are happening are being investigated. To the contrary, the state is actually fueling and encouraging this. And so they wanted that to be ending too. Effectively, what they've been calling for is equality.
SUMMERS: I mean, before this election, turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel had often been much lower than among Jewish Israelis.
BUTTU: Yeah.
SUMMERS: And I just want to understand that history a bit better. Why is it that so many Palestinian citizens have been reluctant historically to participate in Israeli elections?
BUTTU: Well, because they didn't see that there was any utility to voting. The second reason is people didn't want to legitimate the system. This time around, however, when it was made clear that this new government that was going to come in was going to get a mandate to do everything from build settlements in Gaza, to build settlements in Lebanon, to continue ethnic cleansing policies, and they also made it clear that we are not citizens, that our rights should also be stripped from us - this is why they went out in very large numbers.
SUMMERS: For Palestinians who opt not to vote, what have you heard in terms of their arguments against participating in this political system at this very moment?
BUTTU: It's been interesting because I've encountered a number of people who are first-time voters, even though they're older, who ideologically were opposed, but now this time around said they needed to do something. But I haven't encountered anybody who has not voted.
SUMMERS: Well, what about those who are participating, like those first-time voters you mentioned, those who are voting? Why do they believe it matters? What do they believe that vote can accomplish?
BUTTU: The choices for Palestinians, especially in this election, are not between good and bad. It's between bad and worse. Some people would say between evil and more evil. This is the way I've heard many people refer to it. And so for them, the question is - do we want to give a mandate to Netanyahu for another four years with all of the ministers that he has who have been backing him, who have been pushing for these policies of building settlements in Gaza, building settlements in Lebanon, pushing Palestinians out of the West Bank, supporting the Jewish terrorism in the West Bank, as well as pushing for Palestinians who hold citizenship to be marginalized and to be kicked out? Can we stand four more years of that? Or is it now the time to vote?
And that's why this drove so many people to vote as a way of expressing that enough is enough. This isn't to say that people love the alternative, that Eisenkot's policies are going to be any different than the policies of Netanyahu. But the hope is that, at the very least, they will take the issues that are of concern to Palestinians and take those issues seriously.
SUMMERS: Yeah. Just taking, like, a huge step back here, what do you think this election tells us about the relationship between Palestinian citizens of Israel and the Israeli state? And looking at this turnout, does it represent a change in how Palestinians view political participation, like, globally, or do you think it's a response to the very specific particular circumstances of this election?
BUTTU: I think it's very specific to this election, but at the same time, it says - it projects a lot about the state and how the state views Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship. The mere fact that we've had Netanyahu come out and completely discount this vote and then now allege all sorts of things like there was fraud and so on...
SUMMERS: Yeah, he's gone as far as even to claim - to say (ph) the election has been stolen.
BUTTU: Exactly. It shows you that even though Palestinians have a formal right to vote, that at its core, the state is one that's built on apartheid in which some - one group is privileged at the expense of another. And so when you see and hear the responses by the Netanyahu bloc and by the opposition bloc, you're going to hear the same refrain over and over again, which is that they don't want Palestinians having any role in governing. They want them to be governed but not have any say in even the way that their lives are conducted.
SUMMERS: Diana Buttu is a Palestinian Canadian human rights lawyer, as well as a former peace talks negotiator. Thank you so much.
BUTTU: My pleasure.
SUMMERS: The Israeli government has repeatedly denied accusations of ethnic cleansing and apartheid.
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