RAMALLAH, West Bank — Elections in Israel? Abu Ahmad shrugs.  “They are all the same,” he said as he waited for passengers to board the bus he drives for a $2.30 ride to Aboud, a village 31 miles away.  “Likud, Labor, Yisrael Beiteinu — all of them work for Israel, not for the Arabs,” said Mr. Abu Ahmad, 63, echoing a popular refrain among Palestinians.  He said he did not think Israel’s policies toward Palestinians would change, regardless of whether a center-left or right-wing coalition came to power. And he said he would not welcome new peace talks, because the negotiations that have already been held, on and off since 1993, have not made Palestinians any better off; rather the opposite.  “Remember the days of Peres and Rabin?” he said, jabbing his nearly extinguished cigarette in the air for emphasis, referring to two left-wing Israeli leaders of the past. “What they did for us? They only made promises, and we got nothing but poverty.”  A passenger nodded in agreement. Another, leaning on the door, counted on his fingers the four Israeli settlements that have been built around Aboud, a process that continued regardless of which party was in power.  In a nearby shop selling traditional Palestinian embroidery, the shopkeeper, Sana al-Maridi, was just as cynical in her outlook. “An ugly face, a pretty face — underneath, they are all ugly,” Ms. Maridi, 52, said of the Israeli left and right, as a college student tried to bargain down the price of a $19.90 clutch to $12.50.  “You say, maybe if the left came to power, it would be better,” she said. “But under that ‘maybe’ we had Oslo,” an allusion to the Oslo peace accords of 1993 and 1995. “And they destroyed us for 20 years.”  Some Palestinians see the election of a conservative Israeli government as in their interest, if only to increase international pressure against its occupation.  “I think there is a significant minority of Palestinians who think that the Labor Party gives a pretty face, a deceiving face, of Israel,” said Ghassan Khatib, vice president of Birzeit University outside Ramallah. “But Likud shows its real face.”  In an electronics shop selling colorful, cheap smartphone covers and portable speakers, a 29-year-old salesman named Mohammed said he had not given the elections much thought, though he suspected the outcome would somehow affect his life.  Asked how he felt about the fact that Israelis in the Jewish settlements surrounding Ramallah were allowed to vote in the election, but the Palestinians inside the city could not, Mohammed smiled. “That’s the policy of the occupiers,” he said.
Israel holds national elections Tuesday to determine if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party will earn a third consecutive term, or if the Zionist Union, led by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, will garner enough seats to form a new government.