The Democracy of Gun Shadows
Democracy is not always a celebration of votes, nor are ballot boxes always open doors to the future. At certain moments, elections become something resembling a historical tribunal before which an entire society must stand—not merely to choose its rulers, but to answer a far more consequential question: Where does it want to lead itself after having tested the limits of a path that has taken it to the bloodiest of extremes?
This is how the preliminary results of Israel’s twenty-sixth national elections, held in 2026, appear, seventy-eight years after the country’s establishment, amid an unprecedented polarization between the far right and the Arab vote, and internal fractures that slogans can no longer conceal and national security rhetoric can no longer repair. Israel, which has long presented itself as an oasis of democracy in its surrounding region, now faces a weighty paradox: How can democracy produce a government that brings society itself to the brink of the abyss, only for the ballot boxes to be asked to rescue it from the consequences of its own choices?
Recent years have revealed that when democracy is held captive by fear and ideology, it can be transformed from an instrument for the peaceful transfer of power into a means of entrenching extremism. The ballot box does not guarantee wisdom merely because a voter has placed a piece of paper inside it, and a majority does not grant its decisions moral immunity simply because they have secured enough votes. Perhaps democracy’s most dangerous moments are those in which its legal mechanisms are used to restrict the space available to others, before the legitimacy of the ballot box is invoked to justify actions that exceed the boundaries of law and humanity.
In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was not simply another administration taking its turn at governing the state. In the eyes of its opponents, both within Israeli society and beyond it, it represented the culmination of a relentless shift to the right, in which electoral calculations became intertwined with religious-nationalist tendencies, while the prospects for a political settlement receded before illusions of achieving decisive victory through force. Then came October 7, exposing the fact that an excess of military power cannot necessarily compensate for a deficit of political vision, and that security agencies seemingly impervious to penetration may still fail to prevent catastrophe when excessive confidence replaces vigilance and preconceived assessments take precedence over facts.
That day was not merely a security and military failure; it was an earthquake that shattered the state’s image of itself. Since then, its repercussions have spread to Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, extending beyond the region to confront Israel with mounting moral, legal, and political questions about war, the limits of power, and the future of its relationship with the world.
Yet the paradox is that a government that promised Israelis security found itself managing a prolonged war, opening successive fronts, and leaving society to face an ever-growing bill of bloodshed, anxiety, and division. As the cost of war has risen, so too has the need for a political narrative to explain it. And as promises have faltered, the voices demanding even greater force have grown louder, as though the next dose of the very same medicine will cure a disease aggravated by its excessive use.
Here, a question emerges that ballot boxes alone cannot answer: Can elections change the course that brought the country to this impasse, or will they simply redistribute seats among forces whose rhetoric differs while they agree on keeping the conflict open?
Palestinian Citizens of Israel: The Front They Failed to Anticipate
At the heart of this equation stand Palestinian citizens of Israel, whom segments of the Israeli political establishment have long treated as a marginal electoral constituency rather than a force capable of influencing the direction of government. Yet this supposed margin can become the decisive space between one government and another when an election is closely contested.
The Arab vote is not merely an arithmetic exercise in which ballots are added to the total of one political camp or another. It is a political act whose implications extend beyond the electoral moment. It expresses a determination to remain, a refusal to allow citizenship to become a card stripped of its rights, and an insistence on participating in shaping the political destiny of the state in which Arab citizens live.
Israel’s electoral experience has demonstrated that higher Arab voter turnout and a cohesive Arab political representation can influence parliamentary calculations, particularly when the contest is close. But this is no automatic guarantee of bringing down a government or preventing its return. The outcome also depends on the distribution of seats, the positions of Jewish parties, the rules governing coalition formation, and the ability of opposition forces to turn the ballot-box results into a viable alternative government.
Nevertheless, the Arab vote is not a detail that can be ignored. At a moment when questions of identity, citizenship, security, and rights are intertwined, every vote can carry a meaning that extends beyond the individual who casts it: the assertion that Arab society is not merely an audience waiting for the majority to decide its fate, but a political component with the right to participate in determining the state’s direction.
Here, the harshest paradox comes into view: Palestinian citizens of Israel go to the ballot box knowing that the election results will not remain confined within Israel’s borders. The government formed in Jerusalem may determine, directly or indirectly, the fate of families in Gaza, the future of villages in the West Bank, and the scope of hope available to Palestinians seeking to establish their own state.
They vote in one country while the echoes of their votes reverberate through the lives of a people, parts of whom live under occupation, siege, and devastation. Their votes alone may not be able to stop the war, but they can form part of a broader political struggle to prevent the return of policies that make war a substitute for politics.
The Eighth Front: When Citizenship Becomes the First Line of Defense
If Israel has opened multiple military fronts, the domestic front is no less important than any of them. The danger lies not only in missiles crossing borders, but also in ideas moving through society from within; in fear being transformed into a political creed, hostility into electoral capital, and coexistence into an accusation that must be defended against.
In this context, Palestinian citizens of Israel may become an eighth front—not because they are a military party to the war, but because they possess a different instrument: the electoral vote, civic engagement, the ability to build political alliances, and the defense of equal rights.
But this front cannot be opened through slogans alone. It requires broad participation and a political discourse capable of addressing the everyday concerns of Arab society, from crime and violence to education, housing, and employment, without separating these demands from the larger national questions. It also requires political representation that understands that unity of voice does not mean the elimination of differences, and that competition among Arab parties should not become a free gift to those seeking to weaken their influence.
The goal is not for Palestinians inside Israel to agree on everything, but to recognize that certain historical moments cannot afford to squander available strength on secondary battles. Parties may disagree over platforms, leadership, and methods of action, but the danger threatening fundamental rights compels them to seek common ground without abandoning pluralism or turning unity into a constraint on criticism.
This is precisely where the value of democracy lies: not in making everyone alike, but in teaching them how to disagree without giving extremism the opportunity to monopolize the future.
From the Ballot Boxes to the Future of the Region
Israel’s elections cannot be understood in isolation from Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. Every shift in Israel’s balance of power affects the prospects for a settlement, settlement policies, relations with the Palestinian Authority, and the future of the war and reconstruction.
Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to assume that the departure of a right-wing government, should it occur, would automatically mean the end of occupation or the birth of a just peace. The problem runs deeper than Netanyahu as an individual and extends beyond any particular governing coalition. Over many years, Israeli policy has created facts on the ground that make any genuine transformation contingent on a change of course, not merely a change of faces.
Palestinian responsibility is no less important. It is not enough to wait for the results of Israeli elections to determine the future, nor is it acceptable to reduce the Palestinian national project to the ability of the Israeli opposition to form an alternative government. Palestinians need political unity grounded in legitimacy, participation, and accountability, as well as leadership capable of turning regional and international developments into genuine opportunities rather than placing new bets on the intentions of others.
As for Gaza, which has paid an enormous price in lives, homes, and social infrastructure, it must not remain merely an issue exploited in election campaigns or a bargaining chip in coalition calculations. Its future is the right of its people, not a prize that warring parties award to one another. The West Bank is not a reserve territory for settlement projects, just as Jerusalem is not a minor detail that can be postponed until after the elections.
Ending the cycle of war requires more than replacing a government. It requires recognition that security cannot be established upon the ruins of other people’s rights, and that military power, however formidable, cannot by itself produce lasting political legitimacy.
Conclusion: A Democracy That Does Not Conceal the Shadows of Guns
Israel’s elections may produce a new government, reproduce the old one under different faces, or leave the country facing a prolonged coalition impasse. Whatever the outcome, the real test will not lie in the number of seats won by one camp or another, but in the political system’s ability to escape the cycle of fear, war, and extremism.
Palestinian citizens of Israel, meanwhile, may find themselves facing a rare moment in which high and organized voter turnout can make a tangible difference. Yet the value of that difference will not be measured solely by who leaves office, but also by the opportunities that emerge afterward to protect rights, expand equality, confront racism, and defend the prospect of a different future for relations between the two peoples.
Ballot boxes do not erase the shadows of guns simply by closing their doors. But they may prevent those shadows from swallowing the entire political sphere. They may not bring peace overnight, but they can hold accountable those who have made war a permanent platform and remind those in power that an electoral mandate is not a blank check drawn on the lives of others.
Ultimately, democracy is not merely a society’s right to choose who governs it. It is also its ability to correct its choices and reject the transformation of fear into a system of government and war into an eternal destiny.
If a single vote cannot stop a war on its own, thousands of votes may be able to prevent those who wish to prolong it from claiming that they speak on behalf of everyone.
And perhaps this is where the first step toward breaking the cycle of bloodshed begins: not when all disagreements disappear, but when disagreement ceases to serve as a pretext for perpetuating catastrophe, and when the ballot box becomes a means of reclaiming politics from the shadows of guns.
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