‘Like we don’t exist’: Palestinians in West Bank denied say in Israel vote

Jabal al-Baba, occupied West Bank – In Jabal al-Baba, a small Bedouin community east of Jerusalem, Israel controls almost every aspect of Palestinians’ daily life, from building homes and accessing water to moving freely.Yet when Israelis head to the polls on October 27, the vast majority of the nearly three million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank will have no say in choosing the government that rules their lives under occupation – unlike the 700,000 Jewish settlers living in some 300 illegal settlements and outposts across the territory, including occupied East Jerusalem.“They treat us like something that doesn’t exist,” said Atallah al-Jahalin, Jabal al-Baba’s community representative.“You don’t have the right to vote. You don’t have the rights that you would have in a democratic state.”About 450 people live in Jabal al-Baba, a community in Area C, which makes up about 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and remains under full Israeli military and civil control.Many residents here raise sheep and goats beside homes made from corrugated metal. Most belong to the Jahalin tribe, whose families were expelled from the Naqab (Negev) desert region by Israeli authorities in the y...