Bedouin Women Drive Record Turnout in Israeli Knesset Election
Grassroots mobilization in the Negev region resulted in voting rates tripling in some villages, contributing to a shift in the balance of power in the Israeli parliament.
By Connor Murphy ·
Umm Khaled Fatoum watched bulldozers destroy her son’s home in the Bedouin village of Azzarnug last year. The demolition crew, escorted by police, left the structure as rubble without allowing the family to remove furniture or solar panels. This week, Fatoum cast a ballot aimed at removing Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister who ordered the destruction.
Fatoum stated that her single goal was to send Ben-Gvir home. She noted that no family in the Bedouin community has escaped the impact of his campaign against them. Her participation was part of a wider grassroots effort led by Hanan Alsanah and her Alnashmiat network to educate Bedouin women about their voting rights. The initiative emphasized that the community needed the full power of its votes to counter Ben-Gvir’s influence.
Voting rates in some southern Negev villages tripled during Tuesday’s election. Across the Bedouin communities, the lowest turnout recorded was 62%, while the highest exceeded 93%. With an estimated 180,000 eligible voters, this surge was a critical factor in the performance of the Islamist Ra’am party, which exceeded polling expectations. Arab citizens of Israel secured 19 seats in the Knesset, a number that helped strip Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies of their governing majority.
Netanyahu sought to influence the election through social media campaigns that featured images of Bedouin women with covered faces. He accused Palestinian-led parties of fraud and foreign support to explain the high turnout. Amit Segal, a close confidant of the prime minister, described the increase in Bedouin voter participation as unprecedented in the state's history. Opposition leaders, election organizers, and local activists rejected these allegations, attributing the rise to increased awareness rather than corruption.
Amira Habdoubi, an organizer from Abu Talul, expressed pride in the turnout. She argued that for a community often policed by authorities, voting offered a rare chance for political expression. She stated that while protests often lead to arrests, the ballot box provided a legal method to raise their voices. The mobilization effort addressed logistical barriers, such as the lack of polling stations in unrecognised villages, where residents often had to travel up to an hour in each direction to vote.
Raluca Ganea, executive director of the Jewish-Arab group Zazim, coordinated a support network for election day. Hundreds of women volunteers helped Bedouin voters reach the polls, while approximately 150 men provided a protective presence at the stations. This arrangement aimed to de-escalate potential right-wing provocation and reduce the likelihood of Bedouin men being arrested. The campaign also sought to ensure that women were not subjected to humiliation in social media feeds run by Ben-Gvir’s supporters.
Mayada Abu Khweida, a campaign organizer, identified the primary goals as stopping home demolitions, ending hatred, and halting the war. She noted that while Ben-Gvir speaks of security, the community feels unsafe. The 2019 ruling that declared organizing transport volunteers illegal meant that voters and drivers connected individually. This bureaucratic hurdle added to the difficulty for women in unrecognised villages who were unaware of their right to vote in national elections.
Alsanah reported that women’s turnout in unrecognised villages rose from approximately 20% in the 2022 election to over 60% in this cycle. Israel does not publish voting statistics broken down by gender, so this data remains informal. The activists hope this approach can serve as a model for a new government to rebuild the state through joint effort.
The Muslim Bedouin people reside in a marginalized minority status within Israel. Before the state’s creation, they roamed the Negev desert. Today, their villages occupy only 2.5% of the regional land, and many are deemed unrecognised by the state. These communities often lack basic services like electricity and water, and the majority of the Negev is designated for military training. Over 100,000 people live in about 30 unrecognised communities, while another 200,000 reside in officially recognized towns.
