It was heralded by many as “the most consequential election in Israeli history,” and by rights it should have been. Under Benjamin Netanyahu’s outgoing far-right government, Israel plunged into a severe constitutional crisis, suffered the worst military setback in its history, carried out a genocide in Gaza and two failed wars in Iran, and become the most hated country in the world.

And yet, as Haaretz editor Aluf Benn noted in his postmortem, Israeli Jewish voters proved themselves imperturbable. Support for aggression throughout the region remains nearly universal among Jewish voters, who have once again sorted themselves again into pro- and anti-Netanyahu blocs on a basis that, while reflecting real class divisions, is expressed in familiar culture-war terms, producing yet another frustrating stalemate.

There is, however, one dramatic exception to this uncanny stasis: Israel’s Palestinian minority, which responded to unprecedented levels of racist incitement with the highest turnout on record.