Against a backdrop of fear-mongering and violence that surprised no one, Israelis went to the polls yesterday in an election dominated by right-wing politics. Voter turnout was the highest in decades, at 77 per cent.    

Two days earlier, Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israeli voters that a “second Holocaust” looms if he loses the election. (He added an AI-generated image of a nuclear explosion over the Tel Aviv skyline to his social media post just in case that message didn’t land with enough force). Meanwhile, two Palestinian men opened fire at an Israeli military checkpoint near Hebron last Friday before being killed in a shoot-out.

But the Israeli elections and violence in the West Bank overshadowed other election-related news over the last week: The Palestinian Authority’s decision to postpone what would have been its first elections in nearly 20 years, for almost another year. 

Ottawa’s response to that decision revealed how disconnected political leaders remain from realities on the ground. 

A joint statement released last week by the foreign ministers of Canada, UK, France, and Australia expressed disappointment in the PA, saying “an entire generation of Palestinians has reached adulthood without the opportunity to choose their elected representatives.” They called it a necessary precursor to establishing Palestinian statehood — a reference to the lofty promise these countries made last fall. At the same time, they acknowledged “that significant challenges and impediments have affected the ability to conduct elections in a manner fully consistent with international standards and with the participation of all eligible Palestinians.” 

It was a tactical choice of words that starkly sanitized reality. The “challenges and impediments” refer to Israel’s forced starvation, daily bombardment of Gaza, and enablement of ongoing settler attacks of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. 

There’s a certain absurdity about condemning a people’s absence of electoral or political reform when they are being burned to death in front of their children, or killed trying to get food from aid trucks blocked from entering the Gaza Strip. Are these countries really acting as honest brokers when they reduce attacks on Palestinians and the burning of olive trees and mosques to mere “impediments”?

“It’s a lot of fakeness isn’t it?” Jeremy Wildeman, a political economist from the University of Ottawa, says flatly, pointing to the disconnect between the foreign ministers’ declarations of Palestinian statehood and the reality in Gaza, where food insecurity rates now hover around 67 per cent — down from almost 100 per cent last September.

“Canada, UK, France and Australia realized it would be a catastrophe for them if everybody starved to death immediately, so governments in the UK, France, and Canada felt they had to act. They already had electorates that were deeply unhappy with their close relationship with Israel. So they recognized a Palestinian state, and this [latest statement] is still part of that.”     

Wildeman argues that the Palestinian Authority as a body serves as a key instrument for Israel and its allies to maintain the status quo: Providing security for Israel while creating the appearance of a meaningful effort to grant Palestinians political representation. “This security comes at the expense of Palestinians, who are suffering abuse and colonial violence to remove them from their lands, like we have been seeing in the West Bank,” he says. “It has reinforced the occupation and contributed to the ongoing degradation in Palestinian daily life.”

In other words, holding Palestinian elections carries a significant risk, because a change in governance could upend the status quo in the West Bank.

This is not to say that Palestinians do not recognize the need for electoral reform — or that they feel represented by the Palestinian Authority. The PA was set up by Western countries in the 1990s and remains donor funded by these same nations.

“Elections are a popular necessity, a political necessity, a necessity on all levels,” Bassem Barhoum, a newspaper columnist in Ramallah told me. “The world today views the Palestinian national authority as lacking in its legitimacy because it has not derived its legitimacy from the people for 20 years. Therefore, we need elections, and it is a necessary matter that they take place today before tomorrow,” he said. 

But, he adds, elections anywhere in the world require a safe place to vote freely. “The absence of that environment makes the elections a questionable, difficult situation.”

Palestinians, for their part, are doing their part to push for change. 

According to early reports voter turnout among Palestinian citizens in Israel — who make up about 20 per cent of Israel’s population — indicated that 80 per cent voted — a substantial rise from Israel’s last elections four years ago, where just 54 per cent of Palestinians in Israel cast a ballot. Given that both Netanyahu and his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, failed to secure a clear mandate, the high turnout could give Arab parties some influence over who forms the next government. 

It’s also a remarkable indication of a renewed willingness to use the ballot box to challenge a system that not only marginalizes Palestinian citizens but also threatens their own security. This is especially striking when you consider a recent poll that indicated around 80 per cent of Jewish Israelis support their government’s destruction in Gaza.  

Some Israelis also refuse to accept the status quo, whether by exposing the military’s actions or standing alongside Palestinians as they continue to resist. 

The recent release of Naza, the highly acclaimed documentary, produced by the Guardian and directed by two Oscar-winning Israeli investigative journalists, features interviews with 24 anonymous Israeli military intelligence officers and soldiers about the tactics used to target Palestinians after October 7. Another example: activist rabbis and cantors protecting Palestinian olive harvesters from settler attacks are principled and brave acts of dissent. 

These actions remind us that accountability starts with refusing to look away. It’s a lesson in moral courage that the foreign ministers professing concern about Palestinians would do well to heed.