Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are preparing for legislative elections on 28 November, nearly two decades after the last such elections. The Central Elections Commission is preparing for the electoral process on the basis that the Palestinian territories constitute a single electoral constituency, with voting to take place simultaneously across all three areas, despite the political and practical challenges to holding the elections in Jerusalem and Gaza, and the Israeli restrictions on movement and mobility in the West Bank. These elections raise a question that goes beyond whether they can be held on schedule, or successfully conducted across all three areas. It also concerns the extent to which their outcome, should the elections succeed, can bring about change in a Palestinian reality that is undergoing rapid and dangerous transformations on the ground.

The experience of the local elections held last April reflects the predicament surrounding the electoral process in the occupied Palestinian territory, as well as the broader level of public confidence in the electoral process as a whole under the current Palestinian circumstances. Although voter turnout in the West Bank reached around 56 per cent in those elections, turnout in Hebron did not exceed 33 per cent. The elections were held in five Jerusalem suburbs located outside the boundaries of the Jerusalem municipality: Biddu, Beit Hanina al-Balad, Hizma, Qatanna and Qalandiya. In some of these areas, turnout was particularly low, reaching no more than 29.1 per cent in Beit Hanina al-Balad. In Gaza, meanwhile, the elections could be held only in Deir al-Balah, one of the Strip’s five areas, where voter turnout did not exceed 23 per cent.

The question at the heart of this article becomes all the more pressing as Palestinian preparations for the elections coincide with accelerating Israeli measures that are reshaping the Palestinian reality: in the West Bank, through the development of increasingly extensive means of control over the land and its population; in Jerusalem, which is facing mounting pressures that are intensifying the hardships endured by Palestinians in the city; and in the Gaza Strip, which continues to bleed as it enters a phase of tightening control in the aftermath of the war. As these transformations accumulate, the question extends beyond whether Palestinians will simply be able to reach the ballot box. It is also about whether what emerges from those ballot boxes, even if the elections are successfully held, will be capable of confronting a reality that is being transformed at an accelerating pace and has itself reached a critical juncture.

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Perhaps the most dangerous development unfolding in the West Bank today is the expansion of settlement activity into Areas A and B, where the Palestinian population is concentrated, after decades in which such activity was focused primarily on Area C.

Perhaps the most dangerous development unfolding in the West Bank today is the expansion of settlement activity into Areas A and B, where the Palestinian population is concentrated, after decades in which such activity was focused primarily on Area C.

The Israeli organisation Peace Now has documented the establishment of at least 26 new settlement outposts inside Area B, while settlers have come to control large tracts of land within Areas A and B, alongside Israeli measures to expand the scope of Israeli law enforcement in both areas. At the same time, Israel continues, at a........

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