Before Israeli Arabs decide who to vote for in today's elections, they must decide, as an aggrieved minority, whether they want to vote at all. Polls indicate that close to half may choose not to.
At less than 20 per cent of the population, Israel's 1.3 million Arabs live in a strained political borderland between the Jewish state, into which almost all were born, and the Arab world of which they remain culturally and religiously an integral part.
It is a dilemma that has grown as Israel's struggle with the Palestinians intensified, weighing heavily on relations between Arabs and Jews in Israel itself.
'Sometimes the feeling is that you are closer to an enemy than a friend,' says Adman Sa'adi, an Israeli Arab professor who teaches political science at Ben-Gurion University, of the way Israeli Jews regard Israeli Arabs.
Although far better integrated than most Israeli Arabs by virtue of holding a prestigious academic position, Professor Sa'adi shares the feeling of being a second-class citizen. Whether it is the paucity of government jobs held by Arabs or the intensive security checks they are subject to at Israel's international airport, the Arabs see themselves treated unequally.
On the other hand, their economic situation, while inferior to that of Jewish Israelis, has improved markedly over the years and is much better than in any neighbouring Arab country.