"The exception of Area C" is doing a lot of work in this argument. That's 61% of the territory of the West Bank ("Judea and Samaria") (those scare quotes also doing a lot of work).
To counter your list of things that the PA does de facto control, I will add: who controls the criminal court system? The checkpoints which lead to the outside world? The airspace? The ability to import and export goods? The roads? The territorial contiguity of Areas A and B? The decisions on building new settlements?
Aside from the municipal things you mentioned, which in most places in the world are controlled by subnational entities, Israel is in de facto control of the lives and futures of all 15 million people "from the river to the sea", roughly half of them Jews and half of them Arabs, while only one of those groups has what anyone in the West could consider to be a normal existence.
> "The exception of Area C" is doing a lot of work in this argument. That's 61% of the territory of the West Bank
Area C is less than 10% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank, 6% of Palestinian population if you count Gaza. Interesting that you chose to focus on territory! Last I checked, square kilometers do not vote, people do.
In any case, you are right that Area C is more complicated, since it is controlled by Israel and there are Palestinians who live there.
However, Palestinians living in area C can also vote in Palestinian elections. So although it is true that they live in a territory governed by Israel (unlike the other 94% of Palestinians), it remains false that they are a "large part of the Israeli population that is disenfranchised" (the original statement).
> ("Judea and Samaria") (those scare quotes also doing a lot of work).
Obviously the choice of name for this region reflects a political preference. But that works both ways. I prefer to call it Judea and Samaria because that's what it was called until 1948, when Jordan invaded and annexed it. "West bank" is a relic of Jordanian occupation, chosen by King Abdullah to absorb the region into his kingdom, not just politically but semantically. Jordan hasn't controlled the region in 60 years - longer than the occupation itself. It seems reasonable to stop calling it by its colonial Jordan name.
You seem to take particular issue with my use of the term "Judea and Samaria". That is also a political preference. Do you care to explain it the same way I explained mine?
> To counter your list of things that the PA does de facto control, I will add: who controls the criminal court system?
In areas A and B, the Palestinian Authority.
> The checkpoints which lead to the outside world?
On the Israeli side: Israel. On the Jordanian side: Jordan.
> The airspace?
Israel
> The ability to import and export goods?
The Palestinian Authority, but subject to stringent security control by Israel.
> The roads?
In Areas A and B: the Palestinian Authority.
> The territorial contiguity of Areas A and B?
That was jointly defined by the bilateral agreement at Oslo. So, both sides agreed on that.
> The decisions on building new settlements?
In area C: Israel.
In areas A and B: there are no settlements (Jews are not allowed to live there).
> Israel is in de facto control of the lives and futures of all 15 million people "from the river to the sea"
We're straying from the original topic of disenfranchisement... I will just say that, in my opinion, your view is simplistic and manichean. The closest we ever got to a resolution of the conflict, in 1994, was with a bilateral agreement. Neither side is fully in control of the outcome. Denying that Palestinians, too, have responsibilities and agency, is the surest way to perpetuate this conflict.
To wit, if you get to vote for the HOA board but not for the government that can override every decision the HOA makes, are you meaningfully enfranchised?
They're arguing that due to the failure/stalling of the two-state solution, the PA is effectively not a national government. It administers local services, like policing, courts, infrastructure. But it doesn't control borders, tarrifs and duties, or airspace. The Israeli military operates a parallel legal system that can detain and prosecute them, all under a legal framework that they have no vote or say in. I think its fair to call this a kind of disenfranchisement?
I understand where you're coming from, but this is a flawed analogy.
The legal framework for the Palestinian Authority's existence is a bilateral treaty. Israel did not unilaterally create this flawed administrative entity: it was jointly created with the PLO, as an interim step towards a fully sovereign Palestinian state. The negotiations that followed were also bilateral. These negotiations failed, leaving both sides with an incomplete interim solution. As a result Palestinians are neither citizens of Israel, nor of a wholly sovereign state. They are stateless, that is undeniable. But the reason they are stateless is not that they "have no vote or say". They had a say at the negotiation table in Oslo. They also had a say in Camp David in 2000, when Yasser Arafat walked away from a deal that would have given him a state with its capital in Jerusalem, and started the second intifada instead. They had a say in 2005 when they elected Abbas over reformist alternatives. They had a say in 2006 when they elected Hamas in Gaza. And they have a say now, as Abbas maintains the "pay to slay" program that rewards attacks against Israeli citizens with welfare payments to the attacker's families. There's a reason Israel insisted on overriding security control in the interim state. They couldn't trust the PLO, the very group that killed countless Israeli civilians in shootings, stabbings and bombings, to become the sole guardians of Israeli safety overnight. In Oslo the Palestinian Authority accepted the responsibility to prevent terrorist attacks against Israel. They are free to deliver on that commitment anytime.
My issue with your framing ("the PA is like an HOA"), the parent comment's framing ("Israel solely controls the fate of Palestinians"), and the original comment that started this whole debate ("Palestinians are a disenfranchised part of Israeli population"), is that it strips Palestinians of agency and shared responsibility. It's annoying when you do it. But it's tragic when Palestinians do it to themselves. By perpetuating this myth that they are helpless, blameless victims of external forces, they are making internal reform impossible ("what is there to reform? All our problems are Israel's fault") and any resolution to the conflict impossible ("we are the rebels, Israel is the empire. The only resolution is to blow up the death star").
To tie this back to the original topic of disenfranchisement: even in the flawed interim state created in Oslo, Palestinians have had the opportunity to vote. Not in a state, but in an institution created specifically to chart a path to a state. They elected a president, who then proceeded to cancel presidential elections (the last one was in 2005). They elected a legislative body, who started a civil war and established one of the most violent theocracies in the world. None of this was Israel's doing. To the extent that Palestinians are disenfranchised - denied the opportunity to vote - it is by their own leaders. If anything, it makes me glad Palestine isn't a full-blown state: with leaders like that, the more limits to their power, the better.
To counter your list of things that the PA does de facto control, I will add: who controls the criminal court system? The checkpoints which lead to the outside world? The airspace? The ability to import and export goods? The roads? The territorial contiguity of Areas A and B? The decisions on building new settlements?
Aside from the municipal things you mentioned, which in most places in the world are controlled by subnational entities, Israel is in de facto control of the lives and futures of all 15 million people "from the river to the sea", roughly half of them Jews and half of them Arabs, while only one of those groups has what anyone in the West could consider to be a normal existence.