The Real Reasons Palestinian Leaders Don’t Want Arabs to Vote in Jerusalem’s Election

As a candidate for Jerusalem’s city council, Ramadan Dabash hopes his fellow Arab Jerusalemites—who have the right to vote in municipal elections regardless of whether they are citizens of Israel—will come to the polls in October. Most years, however, only a tiny number do so, in part because of pressure and even intimidation from Palestinian religious and lay leaders. And this pressure comes not only from Hamas but from such senior Palestinian Authority figures as Saeb Erekat, who recently stated that any Arab who votes in the elections will be “assisting” in Israeli “ethnic cleansing.” Bassam Tawil comments: