Israel has again voted for a national leader who acts as if he
considers one-fifth of its country's citizens -- including me and my
family -- to be an existential threat. We were born into the wrong
tribe, so to speak.
Campaign
season shed light on the troubling reality in Israel -- that tribalism
trumps democracy and ethnicity trumps citizenship. When Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Arabs
were "being bused to the polling station in droves," people around the
world were justifiably horrified. And Monday, in response to the
outrage, he apologized for his statement, offering that he knew his
comments "offended members of the Israeli Arab community."
But
Netanyahu's policies speak much more loudly than his half-apology. And
with him poised to serve a fourth term, many Palestinian citizens of
Israel fear, with good reason, that his victory means it is open season
for anti-Arab racism in the Knesset and in the streets.
Israel's war on its Palestinian citizens is nothing new; our rights have been under attack for years (imagine a proposal that
forced Jewish Americans to sign a "loyalty oath" to the United States
as was proposed for Palestinians and other non-Jewish citizens of
Israel). However, the majority's attempt to further entrench
institutionalized racism and deny the rights of indigenous Palestinians has achieved frightening momentum.
The controversial "Jewish Nation-State Bill" that previously floundered in the Knesset has been resurrected. The bill, if passed, would codify
the principle of preserving a Jewish ethnic majority. There are
versions of it that establish Hebrew as the sole official language and
recognize Jewish religious law as a "source of inspiration for the
Knesset."
Even
Israel's Supreme Court has come under attack in recent years for
occasionally defending minority rights, which some view as a threat to
the legal privileges afforded its Jewish citizens.
In response, the government changed the Supreme Court's composition to tilt it further to the right.
Today, the sole Arab Supreme Court justice, Salim Jubran, very often
serves as a dissenting voice in judgments where the court favors
legislation demeaning to Israel's Palestinian citizens.
The 2011 Admissions Committees Law
— upheld in 2014 by the more conservative Supreme Court, which
includes the first Israeli settler jurist — allows hundreds of
localities in Israel to essentially reject applicants seeking to buy
homes built on state land because the applicants are deemed
"unsuitable." The law caused an outcry among Palestinian citizens and
human rights groups, who assert that it's simply a thinly disguised
effort to discriminate against Israeli citizens on the basis of
ethnicity. Simply put, the law enforces segregation within Israel,
helping to keep Palestinian citizens out of Jewish communities.
Attempts
to marginalize Palestinian citizens of Israel also extend to the
political sphere. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's successful push
to raise the threshold
required to win seats in the Knesset was a move designed to exclude
Palestinian lawmakers. Ironically, that move backfired, prompting four
Arab parties to create the Arab Joint List, whose members span a wide
ideological spectrum.
Despite their
political differences, they were united by one important mission, and
that was to defend the rights of Palestinians, whether they reside
within Israel or in the occupied territories. The Joint List won 13
seats and took third place in the parliamentary election.
While
their unity and strong showing is encouraging in the face of Israeli
efforts to divide and weaken the Palestinian community, the fact that
they were forced to unite on the basis of ethnicity rather than ideology
is a reflection of Israeli politics, which draws boundaries among its
citizens on the basis of ethnicity and religion and openly participates
in ugly, xenophobic electioneering.
The
Greek philosopher Aristotle once said that the essence of democracy is
"to rule and be ruled in turn," but as Hassan Jabareen, head of Adalah:
The Legal Center for Minority Rights in Israel, puts it, in Israel,
"Arabs are always ruled and Arab citizens are always in the opposition,
never in the coalition, no matter how many seats they win."
It is very telling that Netanyahu could well form his coalition with Avigdor Lieberman, who called for beheading
disloyal Arab citizens of Israel and whose party Yisrael Beiteinu only
won six seats in the Knesset, and not with the Arab Joint List, which
won more than twice as many seats and is calling for equality and an end
to Israel's military occupation of Palestinian lands, which has lasted
nearly half a century.
If Netanyahu's
re-election is an ill omen for the Palestinian citizens of Israel, it is
even worse news for the 4.5 million Palestinians under occupation who
are ruled by a state that denies them all rights. When Netanyahu said on
the eve of the election that he would not allow the creation of a
Palestinian state, he was making it clear that the occupation will
continue as long as he remains in power.
Renouncing
Palestinian statehood rallied Netanyahu's base by reminding them of how
much he has done to preserve and extend Israel's grip on its West Bank
settlements, built in violation of international law and considered
illegitimate by official U.S. policy going back decades. In fact,
blocking the creation of a Palestinian state has been Netanyahu's life's
work.
Over the years, he has
rhetorically "accepted" Palestinian statehood while continuing to steal
the very land that would comprise a Palestinian state.
CNN
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