Throughout history, Israel’s routine elections, numerous political parties, and inter-party conflicts all work in Israel’s favor to promote the misconception that Israel is a democratic state and that its elections have the ability to influence a dramatic change in the state’s political strategy. The Provisional Government’s debates that occurred in 1948 prior to the first Israeli election displayed Israel’s strategy in using the elections as a means to provide the state with international legitimacy as a democratic state rather than a colonial-apartheid regime, with the foreign minister arguing that “if [Israel] will not have an election, our image in the world will be different and we cannot insist on our rights”,126 and with Ben Gurion “stressing that, unlike France, which did not need elections for its legitimacy since the French people had inhabited France’s territory for many years, Israel needs this legitimacy”.127 Israeli election campaigns have repeatedly seen the exclusion of policies relating to Palestinian human rights from the manifestos of all Israeli parties. Unsurprisingly, the ongoing occupation of the oPt was barely mentioned in any election campaign.128 For example, the March 2020 elections only addressed Palestinian issues in terms of how much more Palestinian land Likud and Blue and White were respectively prepared to annex, with one commentator describing it as a “an 123 Emma Graham Turak Natasha, ‘Israel Heads for Unity Government as Netanyahu Rival Gantz Puts Coronavirus over Politics’ (CNBC, 30 March 2020) <https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/israel-to-have-unity-government-withnetanyahu-and-rival-gantz-amid-coronavirus.html> accessed 3 October 2022. 124 Associated Press, ‘Israel Heads to New Elections as Government Collapses’ (VOA, 22 December 2020) <https:// www.voanews.com/a/middle-east_israel-heads-new-elections-government-collapses/6199875.html> accessed 3 October 2022. 125 Al Jazeera, ‘What We Know about Israeli Coalition That May Oust Netanyahu’ (Al Jazeera, 31 May 2021) <https:// www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/31/close-look-at-israels-potential-coalition-against-netanyahu> accessed 3 October 2022. 126 Israel State Archives, ‘Protocol of the Provisional Government’ (8 August 1948), 28, cited in: Hassan Jabareen, ‘Hobbesian Citizenship: How the Palestinians Became a Minority in Israel’, in Will Kymlicka and Eva Pföstl (eds), Multiculturalism and Minority Rights in the Arab World, ed. Will Kymlicka and Eva (Oxford University Press 2014), 194, <https://ssrn.com/abstract=3486259> accessed 3 October 2022. 127 Jabareen (n 126), 197. 128 Daniel Estrin, ‘Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Is Mostly Absent In Israeli Election Campaign’ (NPR, 21 March 2021) <https://www.npr.org/2021/03/21/979809522/israeli-palestinian-conflict-is-mostly-absent-in-israeli-electioncampaign> accessed 3 October 2022. 23 1 Chapter indicating the increased dysfunction of the Israeli political system. The elections, held on 17th September, did little to break the political stalemate and Netanyahu remained unable to form a coalition and by December, yet another election had been called, this time for March 2020. Netanyahu and Benny Gantz of the Blue and White party formed a “national unity emergency government”,123 though mutual mistrust and a failed budget agreement drove the unity government to collapse,124 necessitating another election to be tabled for March 2021. After yet another inconclusive election and a drawn-out negotiation period, the supposedly centrist party Yesh Atid and its allies entered a coalition with the far right party Yamina, headed by Naftali Bennett, and the Islamist party the United Arab List headed by Mansour Abbas.125 Bennett assumed the role of alternate prime minister on the 14th June 2021, just weeks after the May Dignity and Unity Habba. Currently, Yair Lapid serves as the prime minister of Israel, with Naftali Bennett serving as alternate prime minister and Benny Gantz serving as minister of defense and deputy prime minister.