Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it a habit, at times of political exigency, to incite vocally and explicitly against “the Arabs,” the 20 percent of Israel’s population composed of indigenous Palestinians.

On election day in 2015, he famously whipped up support among his base by announcing on social media that “the Arabs are flocking to the polls in buses,” as if their participation were a danger to democracy rather than its consummation. In the run-up to the inconclusive election held this spring, Netanyahu accused his rival Benny Gantz of plotting to include “the Arab parties” in a coalition. This accusation was quickly denied by Gantz, who has made sure to leave no political daylight between himself and Netanyahu’s Likud party, focusing his campaign solely on the latter’s personal corruption.

True to form, a few days before election day this past Thursday, Likud managed to get a court injunction against an effort to get out the vote among the severely disadvantaged Bedouin Palestinians in Israel’s south, and Bibi again spent election day warning darkly (and illegally) of the danger of high Arab turnout.