A Digression on Elections in Palestine

I am going to rather unkindly pick up on a recent tweet by Cllr Tom Miller during the last Israeli General Election, which Netanyahu seems to have won.  He points out that the people of the occupied territories were not voting on the day that all the Israelis did.

I have seen this idea repeated, and I am puzzled by what it is that is being implied.  Of course people who are not Israeli can't vote in Israeli elections as I (for example) cannot.  The only way for the people on the West Bank and Gaza to vote in an Israeli election would be if Israel annexed those territories, which would be illegal and (I imagine) completely against the wishes of the population.  It would also of course make a state of Palestine impossible.

Of course, both Gaza and the West Bank did have votes in their own elections many years ago, and these fell due for renewal a long time ago.  Neither area has had a new election, but that is the fault of the Palestinian authorities who have ignored peoples' right to vote.

Indeed both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are both so repressive that having a free election there would probably be impossible.

I wonder whether Tome and other people who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause have entirely thought through their position on this.