We’ve been told countless times this year that Israel is a racist, apartheid state because it doesn’t allow Palestinians to vote, even though Israel has great influence over their lives. (Israel does allow every Arab citizen of Israel to vote, however).

But it turns out that Palestinian law has a specific provision that anyone with Israeli citizenship cannot vote.

Israeli lives are very much affected by whomever is running the Palestinian Authority (PA). If Hamas wins, it could mean rockets being shot from the West Bank that could reach every Israeli citizen. It could mean a new intifada, with terrorists streaming into Israel across sections where the security fence was never finished. And any Palestinian Arab who obtains Israeli citizenship would want a say in who rules the PA also.

Yet Israelis (including Arab Israelis) have no say in who is elected to lead the PA.

By the standards of Israel’s critics, is this apartheid?

It is actually worse. The law doesn’t say that those with, say, Jordanian or Canadian citizenship are not allowed to vote. Palestinians in the US who want to travel back to Ramallah to vote seem to be able to, according to these laws.

Only Israeli citizens aren’t allowed to vote. The law is explicitly against Israelis and no others.

If Israeli laws saying that non-citizens are unable vote is “apartheid,” then what do you call a law where the only people who cannot vote are Israelis?

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