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Why I let a Palestinian woman from East Jerusalem decide my vote
I just returned from the voting booth in Tel Aviv. Voting is such a private matter, and at the end of the day, nobody except the person voting knows who he/she voted for.

My voting experience today, however, wasn’t a private matter. And it wasn’t an enjoyable or empowering one either, because I decided to give up my right and privilege to vote in an act of protest, frustration and guilt. I let Riman Barakat, a Palestinian woman from East Jerusalem, decide who I should vote for. And she chose Balad, an Arab nationalist party, a party I would not have voted for and have no specific affinity to (below is a text from Riman on why she chose Balad and what she thinks about me giving up my vote).

I’ve only met Riman once before in Ramallah, because we have a mutual friend. But I do not really know her, or her political views, and cannot say she is my friend. But I turned to her because I preferred not to give my vote to a total stranger on Facebook randomly, but do it personally, talk to her first – and because she is a woman, and from East Jerusalem specifically.

I did it because today, I live in a one-state reality I do not want to live in, and regardless of the term one chooses to use, it is a reality of systematic inequality, discrimination and violent oppression towards the Palestinian minority. When Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967 it had to by definition apply (de jure) all the same laws and duties on the Palestinian population – and with them, there are supposed to be rights. However Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, while able to travel freely in Israel and entitled to public education and national healthcare and pay the same taxes as I do, cannot vote in national elections. They are withheld the most basic and concrete political right any civilian should have to seek out representation and improve their quality of life. This is one of the most blatant forms of disenfranchisement and hypocrisy and it has been the status quo in Israel for 46 years. (West Bank Palestinians of course do not even have those rights, but formally, Israel is not bound to them legally in the same way as East Jerusalem Palestinians, which is why for me it makes it all the worse.)

A country that prides itself so aggressively on its democracy cannot annex an area and leave its population in the dust and think it can get away with it. And I cannot happily go to the polls and vote for a party – even if there is a party I really do believe in – because it feels like a sham. And I am angry that it feels like a sham. I am angry that I couldn’t feel good about voting today and that I was not capable of feeling empowered by my civil rights.

So I did it because I will to live in a place where civilians who are subject to the same government and authorities and whims for all these years can have the same rights before the law. Because I want to actively combat the disenfranchising of Palestinians under Israeli governance and control. Because on election day in the Israel of 2013, the only thing that felt right was to give voice to someone who has systematically been deprived of that privilege for so long. And because I want to make a public and provocative statement that ticks people off or gets them thinking- and honestly, I assume I did it in large part because of I feel guilty; because I’m sick and tired of feeling guilty that I have all these privileges that Palestinians do not.

Despite the fact that Palestinians in East Jerusalem receive a better quality of life then most due to being in Jerusalem, they are still disenfranchised and lack the basic civil rights many around the world have fought for. Something to think about the day after MLK day.