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Former MK Hanna Swaid says anger toward Netanyahu driving high ...

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Hanna Swaid, and former Knesset member, says four years of simmering anger toward Netanyahu is pushing turnout to record levels among both Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel.

, but their parties have never won proportional representation in the Knesset. Even if they don’t win one-fifth of seats, picking up several could be decisive in a tight race.

Questions about Arab voter turnout have long been both an important factor in election results and a political weapon to scare and mobilize right-wing voters, Swaid says.

“Palestinian citizens want to change things and kick out the extremist ministers,” he says, referring to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. “The only way to do that in a democratic state — as far as you can still call Israel that — is elections.”

His assessment of the situation comes as right-wing politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have tried to galvanize their voter bases by warning of high turnout in primarily Arab localities.

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What we found (1)

The Times of Israel reports former MK Hanna Swaid's view that anger at Netanyahu is driving record turnout. In its own voice the outlet calls the community only Arab citizens and calls Swaid an Arab Israeli. Its own quoted source, in the same item, calls them Palestinian citizens, so the reader gets the Palestinian identity only inside one quotation and never from the outlet.

  1. Erases a people's national identity

    Minor

    “Arab citizens make up slightly more than one-fifth of Israel’s population”

    Why this matters
    In its own explanatory voice the outlet names the one-fifth of Israel's population only as "Arab citizens", and the clause that follows refers to "their parties".
    The impression it gives
    A reader takes these voters to be an Arab minority defined by ethnicity and Israeli citizenship, cut off from the Palestinian people.
    The context
    The outlet's own source in S5 calls the same community "Palestinian citizens". NewsCord's editorial cites Sammy Smooha's 2019 survey, in which 61.9% of 718 adult Arab citizens of Israel chose a self-description containing Palestinian. That is historical survey evidence, not proof of any one person's identity. Arab and Palestinian identities coexist, but the outlet's background sentence keeps only the Arab label.

    How we know

    • Elsewhere in the article“Palestinian citizens want to change things”
    • Our analysis“61.9% chose a description of themselves that included Palestinian”Palestinian citizens of Israel voted in record numbers
    • On the recordIn Sammy Smooha's April-June 2019 survey of 718 adult Arab citizens of Israel, including Druze and Bedouin, 61.9% chose a self-description containing Palestinian. This is historical survey evidence, not a 2026 percentage or proof of any individual's identity. Arab and Palestinian identities can coexist.newscord.org (opens in a new tab)

    Show it in the article

    “an Arab Israeli Christian from the Galilee”

    Why this matters
    The outlet introduces Swaid with its own label, "Arab Israeli", and in the same sentence speaks of "Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel".
    The impression it gives
    A reader meets Swaid and the voters he speaks about as Arab Israelis, a category set by the state, before hearing anything he says.
    The context
    When Swaid speaks in S5, he describes the community as "Palestinian citizens". The outlet never adopts his term in its own voice, so the label it chooses and the words of its own source pull apart. Nothing here shows how Swaid describes himself personally. The point is that the outlet's framing drops the identity its source uses for the community.

    How we know

    • Elsewhere in the article“Palestinian citizens want to change things”
    • On the recordIn Sammy Smooha's April-June 2019 survey of 718 adult Arab citizens of Israel, including Druze and Bedouin, 61.9% chose a self-description containing Palestinian. This is historical survey evidence, not a 2026 percentage or proof of any individual's identity. Arab and Palestinian identities can coexist.newscord.org (opens in a new tab)

    Show it in the article

How other outlets reported it

Our analysisPalestinian citizens of Israel voted in record numbers

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