In northern Druze town of Yarka, clan ties and gratitude for Netanyahu guide votes

At a voting station in the northern Druze town of Yarka, Munir Mula says he is voting for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party because “he helped the Druze in Sweida, Syria, and we want to thank him.”

Polling stations across the town are largely organized by family. At one station, voters who belong predominantly to the Mula clan, one of Yarka’s largest and most prominent families, cast their votes for Netanyahu because one of their family members, Mula Mula, is number 42 on Netanyahu’s slate.

“We’re voting for Netanyahu, and we hope it will be good for the whole nation,” says Najla Mula as she leaves the polling booth where only two posters are hanging: one of Netanyahu with Mula and one of Hamad Amar, who is number seven in Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu slate. “We hope that whoever is voted in, it will be good for the entire country.”

Other residents spend the morning harvesting olives and then go to the voting stations afterwards.

“Here in Yarka, we feel stuck in a war, and it’s important to vote to bring about change,” says Sarah, who asks that her last name be withheld. “More than three years of war is sad.”

She is casting her ballot for Amar because he is a close friend of her father’s.

“People vote for Liberman because of Hamad Amar or Netanyahu because of the Druze in Syria, or because he is part of their family and they want a family member in the Knesset,” Sarah says. “Nobody is voting for Itamar Ben-Gvir.”