Netanyahu may be frantically fueling anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia, but it is his opponents who have accepted his ethnic rules of the game

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Over the weekend, while driving on Tel Aviv’s central highway, I saw an Arabic phrase written in Hebrew and Arabic on a billboard: “Yalla bara!” – meaning, “Get out!”

Beside the caption was Sami Abu Shehadeh, an Arab party leader whom all Jewish parties in the Knesset are seeking to disqualify over his pro-Palestinian rhetoric after October 7. The billboard belonged to ultranationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir, who boasted of keeping an Arab politician out of parliament at the bottom of the ad.

Shouting “Bara!” is a familiar anti-Arab trope in Israel, including among right-wing lawmakers in the Knesset. Now it has become an election ad welcoming you to Israel’s most racist election to date.

The billboard capped a successful week for racism. Israel’s Central Elections Committee, dominated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, voted to bar all Arab parties from running, which the Supreme Court will now have to decide whether to uphold.

With only a month until Israelis vote, ethnicity is setting the rules. Candidates and party leaders across the pro-Netanyahu bloc who urged “total annihilation” and openly called for mass civilian killings in Gaza are welcome on the ballot. But Arab candidates who fiercely condemned both October 7 and Hamas need judges’ permission to appear on it.

Don’t give Ben-Gvir the credit, though. It’s Netanyahu’s campaign that frantically fuels this mix of anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia. His central election message: “Gadi Eisenkot will form a government with Arab parties.”

Click here to read the full article on Haaretz.

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Featured image: A campaign video published by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. Referring to “an Eisenkot government,” the caption reads: “Effectively ruled by Abbas and the Muslim Brotherhood.” Credit: Screenshot from Benjamin Netanyahu’s X account/Haaretz

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