“Apathy and apprehension.” That’s one way to describe the mood in Gaza and the West Bank just days before the Israeli elections. Today, more than ever, it is obvious to the Palestinians that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan speech, which focused on the “two-state solution,” was little more than a historical footnote. Just looking at the lists of candidates presented by Likud Beiteinu and Naftali Bennett’s party, the only conclusion they can reach is obvious: There is no commitment on the horizon to a political solution to the conflict. If, in the previous Knesset, Netanyahu was forced to deal with internal opposition to negotiations from members of his own party such as Tzipi Hotovely, Yariv Levin, and Zeev Elkin (who lent his name to this group of parliamentarians, known collectively as the “Elkins”), in the next Knesset they will be joined by Moshe Feiglin, Naftali Bennett and Orit Struk. The Palestinians are well aware of what that means for them.

The Hamas movement in Gaza has absolutely no interest in the Israeli elections. The local leadership there has no plans whatsoever to reach a long-term political agreement with Israel, and in Gaza, unlike the West Bank, it is impossible to build settlements. The government there knows that Israel will not conquer the Gaza Strip again, and this knowledge, compounded by Hamas’s unchallenged rule, result in a sense of apathy toward Israel’s electoral process, regardless of the outcome. It seems as if the only emotion that Hamas has left for Israel is the feeling of victory, which has resonated among the group’s leaders ever since Operation Pillar of Defense. As far as they are concerned, they sent Israel just the right message. It lies within their power to send the people of Tel Aviv scuttling for their bomb shelters.

The situation in the West Bank is fundamentally different. There, the Palestinians fear that the new government might create new settlements, expand existing ones, and confiscate more land. The future Israeli government can expedite construction there, offer benefits to Jewish settlers, pave new roads, and build new tunnels. Israel’s control of Gaza has all but disappeared as a result of the withdrawal. The only muscle it has left there is control of the border crossings and the threat of military operations. In contrast, Israel still has enormous strength in the West Bank. What this really means is that Israel has an unprecedented impact on the day-to-day lives of the Palestinians living there.

It therefore seems as if the people of the West Bank don’t have the luxury of ignoring the elections in Israel, no matter how much they really want to.