This paper addresses the conditions under which purely relational anti-system parties that are not strictly anti-democratic are nevertheless labeled subversive opposition to the regime. The hypothesis is that three variables are behind such a phenomenon in a democracy: a deep national divide and a security-related tension between a national majority and a minority, a closed competitive structure, and the emergence and eventual supremacy of right-wing parties. A case study of parties representing the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel is used to illustrate this dynamic between 2000 and 2009.