Less than a month has passed since Israel’s “government of change” was sworn in, and to bridge the gaps in the country’s most heterogeneous coalition ever, it has declared itself “anti-ideological.” Controversial issues between Right and Left are off the table, such as West Bank settlements, religion and state, and the composition of the Supreme Court. However, ideology is the bread and butter of Israel, and ideological issues cannot be kept from the morning news. The first of these was the fate of Eviatar, an illegal settler outpost erected on the lands of the Palestinian village of Beita; initially, when the new government took over, Eviatar was slated for evacuation and demolition.

At the same time, the Citizenship and Entry Law came up for its annual approval. This is a temporary order from 2003, the height of the second intifada. Eviatar and the Citizenship Law are both purely “ideological” issues. A right-wing party led by Naftali Bennett supports the establishment of new settlements and does not call them “illegal” even if built without permits. On the left side of the same coalition, Meretz denounces settlements, and it has been petitioning the courts against the Citizenship Law since 2006.

The commitment not to engage in ideology for unity’s sake has brought the coalition’s left side, Meretz for instance, to rotten compromises, dictated by the right-wing composition of the government and the Knesset. Although in the new coalition there exists a kind of balance between Right, Center, Left and the Islamic movement, the weight of the Right is decisive. Labor, Meretz and the Islamic Movement must make allowances for their right-wing partners, who have the right-wing Knesset opposition, led by Netanyahu, breathing down their ideological necks. This—even though that opposition refuses to recognize the government’s legitimacy, calls Bennett a traitor, and describes the coalition as a danger to Israel’s security.

Meretz, Labor and the Islamic Movement were forced to swallow the compromise reached by Bennett with the settlers in Eviatar, according to which the settlers will be voluntarily and temporarily evacuated from the outpost, their houses left intact, and the army will occupy the place until the status of the lands is clarified. What began in Netanyahu’s time as a demolition by agreement, became under Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked a new “legal-to-be” settlement for the first time in 20 years. This is an impressive achievement for the settlers and a scorching loss for the Left.

We did not manage to recover from the blow of Eviatar before the Citizenship and Entry Law fell on us. Under pretext of security, this law keeps citizenship from West Bank or Gazan Palestinians who marry Palestinian citizens of Israel. It discriminates against (Arab) Israeli citizens on ethnic grounds, with the justification that spouses from the territories might be terrorists. As noted, the law originated during the second intifada, when there were 45 cases in which residents of the Occupied Territories holding Israeli identity cards took part in hostilities. For 17 years, this discriminatory law was renewed without debate, although in recent years violence by Palestinians holding Israeli IDs has dwindled to zero. The number of families whose lives are hamstrung by the Citizenship Law today stands at 13,000.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has openly declared that the problem is not security but demography. Lapid, architect of the new government, has thus confirmed the claim of the law’s initiators, who declared that marriage serves the Palestinians as a means of “exercising the right of return.” Supreme Court Justice Mishael Cheshin, who wrote the majority opinion in the decision not to repeal the Citizenship Law, ruled that “Palestinian residents of the area are enemy nationals who constitute a risk group for the citizens of Israel, and therefore the state may enact a law prohibiting their entry into the country.” In so doing, Cheshin camouflaged this discriminatory law under the guise of a security need—instead of its real motive, demography.

Not only is Cheshin’s claim not backed by facts, but it doesn’t make sense. The Palestinian Authority (PA) maintains intimate relations with the State of Israel, primarily by the close security coordination between the parties, confounding the notion that it is an “enemy state.” Accordingly, its citizens cannot be considered enemy nationals. Moreover, the PA itself is an Israeli invention. Newborn Palestinians in PA territory are listed in the Israeli Population Registry and given an ID number, which appears in a green ID card issued by the PA. The card is identical to the blue Israeli identity card, but its color determines the civil status of those who carry it, or rather, their lack of status.

Furthermore, 150,000 “enemy nationals” enter Israel daily to work; the accepted currency in the PA is the Israeli shekel; Israel and the PA have a uniform customs arrangement; Israel controls all entries and exits into and out of the West Bank and Gaza; and Israel can shut off the electric power at will. In other words, Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza are Israelis for all intents and purposes, except that they lack civil rights. In the West Bank, they are subject to the Israeli Civil Administration, subordinate to the military commander, the supreme sovereign who determines everything; the Palestinian depends completely on his will.

In fact, Palestinians have no need to exercise the right of return through the back door. Those who are enabling that back-door return are precisely the half million Israeli settlers. By preventing a Palestinian state, they have, in effect, transformed the entire territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean into a single political unit. The Citizenship Law was meant to reinforce the illusion of a Green Line separating the West Bank and Gaza from Israel. If this imaginary line ever existed, however, it has long been erased, despite the porous Separation Barrier.

While the Knesset clashes over the Citizenship and Entry Law, which affects 13,000 Palestinian families who pose no security or demographic threat, the “government of change” avoids discussing the fate of 5 million Palestinians of the territories whom it controls in all matters, from freedom of movement to family reunification. The use of legislation to keep Palestinian citizens of Israel from marrying and starting a family only reveals the contradiction in a state that defines itself as Jewish and democratic. The Citizenship and Entry Law violates the most basic human rights. It is no coincidence that it has not become a standing law, because it harms Israel’s image as a democracy. More importantly, this discriminatory legislation cannot stop the processes taking place before our eyes, which are creating a single political, economic, demographic and geographical reality between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.

In recent weeks, Palestinians have been demonstrating against the PA for cancelling the parliamentary elections, and for the beating to death of social activist Nizar Banat by Palestinian security forces. These demonstrations should help the Israeli public, and the international public too, to understand the “enemy entity.” The PA is oppressing the people it is supposed to represent, a people that strives like all others for democracy, social justice and basic rights.

The participation of Meretz, the Labor Party and the Islamic Movement in the Bennett-Lapid government gives a boost to the Israeli Right, which is trying to halt political, demographic and geographical processes created by its own actions. The Right regards the Palestinian question as “shrapnel in Israel’s ass” (Bennett), a problem with no solution. It legislates racist laws to delay the end, while simultaneously settling on every hill and under every fig tree, abusing Palestinian farmers and shepherds, plundering their lands while the army stands idly by. As we get closer to the reality of one state, Israel will continue legislating racist laws, on the way to becoming a state that is indeed Jewish but certainly not democratic. This is now happening with the help of the Zionist Left, which by linking its fate to the right-wing parties is losing its right to exist.

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There is no greater contradiction than that between the names of the two parties that organized the new coalition in Israel. Yesh Atid (“There is a Future”) heralds change, while heading the government is a party calling itself Yamina (“Turn Right”), which intends to take us back to the days of President Ronald Reagan, who hamstrung the welfare state and opened the neoliberal era. Today, especially after the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is turning strongly to the Left to rebuild the welfare state with ideas from Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” based on a green economy.

Donald Trump sealed the neoliberal era with a jarring chord that threatened, and still threatens, to destroy American democracy. Benjamin Netanyahu worked to distort Israeli democracy to save his skin from criminal charges. Yet the current American cure for neoliberalism is to bring the state back as a key factor in economic development for the benefit of society as a whole. By contrast, Israel turns rightward to the economic conservatism represented by Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked. What future can Israel expect when the cure for populism is the same neoliberal doctrine from which that populism grew?

Bennett did indeed demand that his eight coalition partners put ideologies aside and concentrate on running the country, investing in areas on which there exists consensus, such as education, health, transportation and welfare. The question, however, is who will develop these areas – the private or public sector? Will the rich pay more taxes (as Biden demands in the US) to reduce the gap between them and the poor? How can one reconcile the need to raise the workers’ standard of living with the harm to organized labor entailed by Bennett’s theory? How can the expansive funding of work-shy ultra-Orthodox men be reconciled with the need to raise the educational level of the disadvantaged? How do you reconcile the contradiction between the new billionaires and the need to fight the link between wealth and government, which has already brought two prime ministers to court on criminal charges and is gnawing away at democracy? It turns out that every road, every desk, and every hospital bed amounts to an ideological choice.

Apparently, the only way to bridge ideological gaps is to cling to the past. We have overthrown Netanyahu but will continue in his footsteps, applying his teachings in our own style. We will change the melody but not the lyrics– melody by Bennett, lyrics by Netanyahu. It’s weird, it’s jarring, but it’s possible. Bennett, a supporter of settling Greater Israel, is sitting in the same coalition as Nitzan Horowitz of Meretz and Mansour Abbas from the Islamic Movement. Netanyahu’s mantras – “Iran, Iran, Iran”, “peace in exchange for peace”, “agreement with the Palestinians is not on the agenda”, “Hamas only understands force”, “we have become a natural gas power”, “we are a cyber power”, “we came out of the pandemic first “- continue to resonate.

Despite Bennett’s adoption of Bibi’s lyrics, US President Joe Biden was quick to call and congratulate him, since the departure of Trump’s close friend is a relief for the US Democrats. Biden is already inviting Bennett to the White House, and as the son of San Francisco -born parents he will probably have no trouble communicating with the President. Yet Bennett ought to update his English, because if he continues to mimic Netanyahu’s, he will get a cold shoulder and a raised eyebrow. He may not have difficulty mouthing phrases like “climate change” or “build back better,” but it will be otherwise with issues like “Black Lives Matter” or “human rights,” since he is committed to avoiding ideology. If Biden makes it hard for him and utters the forbidden P-word (“Palestinians”), the raised eyebrow will be Bennett’s, wondering how Biden arrived at so anti-Semitic a concept.

If Biden tries to ask less divisive questions, such as “democracy or autocracy,” Bennett will have no difficulty, since he is the representative of the only democracy in the Middle East and knows what language to choose. But if Biden demands that Bennett take sides— Putin or him, China or the US— that’s another matter. Bennett will immediately recall the dowry left him by Netanyahu: the special ties with Putin that let Israel attack Syria unimpeded. He will also squirm in his seat if Biden mentions the sale of Israeli companies to the Chinese, such as Tnuva, Ahava and the new port in Haifa.

So yes, Israel stands by its best friend, and democratic values do indeed underlie the strategic relationship between the two countries, but they disagree on the meanings of the words democracy and autocracy. Bennett’s school is closer to that of Trump, which advocates democracy for whites only, while Bennett’s is for Jews only. Human rights à la Bennett may be important for Americans and Israelis, but less so for Russians, Chinese and our Arab neighbors, and it is not in our interest to interfere in their affairs.

Upon his return to Israel, Bennett will announce how he bravely withstood American pressure, just as Netanyahu did before him. Israel will continue to stew in its own juice, Jews against Arabs, Mizrahis against Ashkenazis, Haredim against seculars, and will continue to control five million Palestinians lacking in human and civil rights. At the same time, America is turning to existential tasks, such as fighting against climate change, opposing institutionalized racism, promoting social justice, and grounding democracy. After four decades of destroying the welfare state, pushing itself and the world to the abyss, the US is adapting itself to the 21st century. And Israel? Under the national-religious Bennett, it awaits the Messiah.

For those who do not believe in Bennett’s messianic ideology, and who look through the prism of a worldwide Green New Deal, the manifest reality is bleak and dangerous. The agreement of 115 out of 120 MKs in the Knesset to keep Palestinians out of the public discourse, and to refuse to seriously discuss a permanent solution to end the conflict, is foolishness and injustice. Eight years ago, the Left cried out against Bennett’s statement that the Palestinians are “a shrapnel in Israel’s ass,” meaning that it hurts but can be lived with. Today this attitude is commonplace, from Bennett to Horowitz, from Lapid to Michaeli.

The truth is that the shrapnel has blighted the whole of Israeli society. It has corrupted the youth, deepened racism, and undermined the legitimacy of the justice system. It has profoundly changed the attitude of US Jewry toward Israel, causing American youth to hate it for 54 years of crushing Palestinians by means of Occupation.

The headline of the “Economist” on May 29 did not read “Bibi or not Bibi.” It read, “Israel and Palestine: Two States or One.” The answer is clear and unequivocal. After 28 years of the Oslo Accords, the two-state slogan is irrelevant. Bennett said so eight years ago, and this is what the newly changed government heralds.

If Israel wants to be a democracy, it must adopt the path of the American administration, which advocates equal human rights and a “Green New Deal” to protect democracy from autocracy. Advocates of democracy in Israel and Palestine face the historic task of adopting an “Israeli-Palestinian Green New Deal,” jointly eliminating the apartheid regime by founding one democratic state. The international community is ripe for this. It is the only answer to the religious-nationalist and messianic trends that currently dominate the Israeli and Palestinian societies, reigniting the conflict time and again with no prospect of a solution.

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In exchange for shutting down parts, or even all of the pro-Netanyahu freebie newspaper, Israel Hayom, media tycoon Arnon Mozes, owner of the competing Yedioth Ahronoth, promised that Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu will remain prime minister for as long as he desires. The deal never materialized. Netanyahu fought against the ‘Israel Hayom’ law; because it passed a first reading, he dissolved the government, went to elections, and won. Mozes tried hard then, and is still trying, to bring down the Netanyahu government, but Bibi has a winning formula to ensure his rule – inciting vicious hatred against the Arabs.

This formula was cooked up before him by Avigdor Lieberman, who boasted that only he “understands Arabic.” But it sounds a lot more genuine coming from Netanyahu’s mouth, and the results do not disappoint. On Election Day, when reports from the field foretold a defeat, Netanyahu posted on YouTube a desperate cry to his followers: “The Arabs are flocking to the polls in droves.” This strengthened the Netanyahu camp and still keeps the opposition out of power.

However, in order to survive, the government cannot made do with incitement alone – it must run the country and deal with issues of economic, social, and political complexity. The Arab population, making up a fifth of Israel’s 8.6 million people, is an important part of the country’s political and economic fabric. Since joining the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Israel is under an obligation to consider the needs of the Arab population in its macroeconomic planning, as well as making long-term plans in the areas of employment, housing, transport, education, and municipal services.

One basic premise of the macroeconomic planning is that the gap between the Arab and Jewish population harms not only Arab citizens but the Israeli economy and society as a whole. Therefore, the government invests in many programs aimed at strengthening local Arab authorities to increase employment among Arab women, develop transportation, and encourage entrepreneurship. This is intended not only to reduce the enormous poverty gap but also to encourage economic growth that would bring more money into the state treasury. One of these programs, initiated by Minister of Agriculture Uri Ariel, calls for investing three billion shekels (roughly $790.000) in the Bedouin community and building 25,000 housing units. There is a catch, however. The various programs are conditioned on local Arab authorities taking steps against illegal construction. For example, the 15 billion shekel five-year plan for the Arab sector will be implemented only after the government has ascertained that building laws are being enforced.

In other words, although common sense dictates advancing and integrating the Arab population, Netanyahu’s heart is not in it. The Israeli Right understands well enough that strengthening Arab society will contribute to Israel’s welfare and even improve the shaky relationship between Jews and Arabs. But since there is little chance that the Arabs will vote en masse for the Likud and identify with the messianic aspirations of the extreme Right, every penny invested in the Arab population seems wasted—unless, of course, Bibi can make political profits by inciting against them.

In June 2016, Netanyahu was forced to apologize to the Arab public for incitement on Election Day. He asked them to “take part in Israeli society.” However, as expected, the apology proved to be an exercise in public relations, not a real change in policy. How does he expect the ‘Arab citizens of Israel,’ as he calls them, to become an integral part of the society when he inveighs against them day and night? Four months after the apology, following a drought, a wave of fires swept the country, giving Bibi a golden opportunity to blame the Arabs for “arson terrorism.” While the flames rose in Haifa and Jerusalem, Netanyahu, accompanied by Police Minister Gilad Erdan, and Minister of Culture, Miri Regev, ran from camera to camera emitting sympathy borne on the wheels of hate and incitement. He promised harsh punishment, and it was not long in coming in the form of unprecedented house demolitions (although as of this writing, two months later, no one has been charged).

In demolishing houses, the Israeli government stands on a legal ground of its own making. The vast majority of Arabs cannot build legally, because no master plans for expansion have been passed by the government for their localities. Since its founding in 1948, Israel has established hundreds of Jewish localities—and none for Arabs. Yet Arabs are no exception where natural increase is concerned.

After destroying houses in the Israeli Arab town of Kalansua on the claim that they had been built illegally, Netanyahu decided to escalate the campaign of hatred. He posted on Facebook: “Our forces demolished 12 Arab homes in Kalansua”, as if they were Hezbollah outposts in southern Lebanon, and not a poor community on the outskirts of Kfar Saba.

On January 18, 2017, during house demolitions in the unrecognized Negev village of Umm al-Hiran, one of the Bedouin citizens was driving when he was shot in the right knee by police. The car speeded up, went into a group of policemen, and one of them was killed. The police claim it was a terror attack, saying the driver had ties to the Islamic State. The neighbors deny the ISIS connection and say he lost control of the car after being shot. The driver cannot be asked: he was shot in the chest as well and left to bleed half an hour until dead. (Immediately the incident was compared to a recent one in Jerusalem, when a Palestinian from an occupied neighborhood deliberately drove his truck into a group of soldiers, killing four.) Netanyahu responded to Umm al-Hiran, “Such incidents will not deter us, they will strengthen us.” However, forensic evidence casts doubt on the police allegations, as well as on any ISIS connection. How then can the Israeli government expect to integrate 20% of its population while demonizing them as a fifth column—and when every tragic event is at once transformed into arson or a car-ramming!

With the major aim of strengthening Netanyahu’s position within the right-wing camp, the campaign to de-legitimize the Arabs has two main sub-goals. First, in order that the Likud may keep its support, the people must be fed frequent doses of fear and hatred. The second sub-goal is to prevent Arab parties from joining forces with the Jewish opposition factions. There is no question but that this is a winning strategy. Yair Lapid, in attempting to position himself as an alternative candidate for prime minister, joined the chorus of nationalist incitement. Another example of this is the Labor Zionist camp, which lined up behind Lapid and is trying to stop its deterioration in the polls. Billboards displaying crowds of people waving Palestinian flags and the words “قريبا سنكون الأغلبية” (“Soon we will be the majority”) were launched by 250 retired security officials, including former heads of the Shin Bet and Mossad. The Left uses fear of the Arabs to promote separation from them. This just reinforces hatred and sends voters straight into Netanyahu’s arms. Thus, Netanyahu will continue his campaign of hatred as long as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Israel Hayom allow him to.

Not only is the Zionist opposition playing this game, but also the Arab parties. These have an electoral base to play to, so why not take part in this political game. Like Bibi, Arab MKs too know how to make headlines: They boycott Shimon Peres’ funeral; smuggle cellphones into a security prison; brandish the well-known slogan “Al-Aqsa in danger”; and propose complete disengagement from a “hostile” Israeli society. The call by the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee for a general strike prevents Arab students from going to school and keeps garbage from being collected in Arab towns. This seems more self-punishment than protest. Demonstrations taking place in Arab communities are not felt by Israeli citizens, while Arab citizens feel that the nationalistic verbiage is disconnected from their everyday reality.

Thus, Netanyahu wages his war against the Arab population and the Arab parties conduct their separate struggles against him. The Zionist Left is dragged into the fray but has no alternative strategy. In between, Jewish and Arab citizens seek to cope with the harsh reality. Netanyahu is bad for the Jews and worse for the Arabs. The plain truth is, persecution of Arabs does not improve the plight of the Jews. The destruction in Kalansua and Umm al-Hiran will not lower housing prices in the Jewish sector and will not lift Jewish families out of poverty.

I wonder how Netanyahu would respond if Arab citizens were to exercise their civic rights. If instead of building illegal houses in their communities, they were to buy homes in Jewish cities – as they have already done in Carmiel, Nazareth, and Afula. No doubt that such rising demand would propel housing prices even higher. It turns out that illegal construction in Arab villages exempts the government from fulfilling its role, i.e., supplying housing for all citizens, including Arabs. Netanyahu can continue to pat himself on the back. He may have ensured himself continuing rule, but his one-sided war against the Arab population has been lost in advance. They are here to stay.

Translated from the Hebrew by Robert Goldman

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The words “historic decision” spill forth across Israel’s political spectrum, including the Arab leadership. On December 31st the most right-wing government in the country’s history passed the largest aid program ever to its Arab sector: NIS 15 billion (ca. $4 billion). How is that possible?

Recently the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel was outlawed, and everyone prophesied that this is just the beginning. Leftists were preparing to wear yellow stars, and a novel called Borderlife, about a sexual relationship between a Jew and an Arab, was removed from the school curriculum. Netanyahu’s contentious election-day warning that “Arabs were thronging to the polls in droves” still reverberates. Words like “fascist” and “foreign implants” dominate public discourse. And then suddenly, for a few hours, sanity dawns. On the Right and Left, among Jews and Arabs, people unite behind a historic decision, the foundation of which is “Correcting the Systems of Allocation.” The systems that until now have discriminated against the Arab sector would be transformed into systems creating equality. Hallelujah!

The financial implications of the plan are still unclear, but the political content is evident, so it is truly “historic.” The State of Israel recognizes at last that its Arab citizens are here to stay. For the first time, all government ministries will allocate funds to the Arab sector according to its proportion in the population (21%). As Meirav Alozoroff put it the Dec 31, 2015 issue of The Marker: “They are taking from the Jews what they don’t deserve and giving to the Arabs what they do deserve.” The same government that works overtime to stress the Jewish character of the state at the expense of democracy suddenly reverses the entire historical trend, favoring equality over its pro-Jewish tendency. Gone are the days of Ben Gurion and programs like “the Judaisation of Galilee.” Indeed, the latter program has been quietly upended in recent years: the cities of Carmiel, Nazareth Illit, and Afula Illit, founded to establish a Jewish majority in Galilee, have become home to Arab families from the villages. Reality trumps policy.

To understand how a national Jewish-Arab consensus took shape supporting the decision of a right-wing government, one has to enter the depths of Israeli reality, where politics and economics do not always go hand in hand. Some Arab critics of this ambitious plan claim that the government was forced into the new budgetary decision under pressure from the OECD and the EU, and that the true allocation to the Arab communities will amount to only 2.5 billion.

This may be true, but it’s not the whole truth. In today’s Israel, which is well integrated into the global economy, there are two separate forces at play: alongside the army, the security services, and the political mechanisms, there is a civil establishment that is no less important to the state’s existence. It consists of professionals from the Finance Ministry and the Bank of Israel. Just as generals rely on intelligence assessments, these professionals depend on graphs and statistics. The Israeli economic model of today is warped and ineffective because the Arab sector is not fully integrated into the economy. This sector consumes health services, education, welfare, and infrastructure, yet its economic contribution is meager because of institutionalized discrimination. Those who study the Arab sector know very well that ever since Israel’s acceptance into the OECD in 2010 (and in some respects even before that), the Finance Ministry has been guided by professional considerations. As for the years when the political echelon excluded the Arab population economically, it was clearly acting against economic logic.

For several years the Finance Ministry and the Prime Minister’s office have been distributing funds to correct the low level of participation of Arab women in the labor market. But Arab entrepreneurs are not waiting for the government and have tried independently to break through economic barriers, many quite successfully. Integration of Arab entrepreneurs and professionals into the Israeli economy has become a reality, despite racial obstacles and intense right-wing politics. The Arab citizen has made intelligent use of his citizenship in defiance of the politicians. So the government’s correction of the budgetary allocation proves Churchill’s adage: “If you can’t beat, join them.”

The government decision is just a beginning. To make this program happen, a lot of good will and skill are needed. Even if we assume that all ministries really do allocate funds proportionately to the Arab population, a key question remains: Will the Arab representatives be able to make wise use of the money?

Wise use will require the active participation of three factors in the Arab sector: apolitical factor, namely the Joint List (an alliance of four Arab parties); a civil society factor, namely the many Arab NGOs that have risen over the years; and most important of all, the local governments. The greatest difficulty lies in the fact that for 40 years the gap between Jews and Arabs has widened. It contributes to the subordinate status of Arab women, discrepancies in education, and increases in violence, crime, unemployment, and poverty.

The problematic situation in Arab society takes political expression. That society is more conservative and religious than ever before. Just two months ago, we witnessed mass unrest led by the Northern Islamic Movement under the banner “Al-Aqsa is in danger!” A religious nationalist agenda sets the tone in the Arab community today, dragging along the political parties and local governments. This was evident when schools and municipal services were shut down in solidarity with the Islamic movement. The return to religion has reinforced patriarchal society, and the dominance of clan affiliation in elections to local councils impairs local government. Therefore, the problem is not limited to the allocation of funds; everything depends on how these funds are used. If they are managed by people who have been placed in key positions as a result of favoritism rather than professional qualifications, the result will be disastrous.

In order for the ambitious plan to succeed, two profound changes are required. The first depends on Israeli politics. Israel must go through a deep political change fitting a modern day economy. Equality in budgetary allocations must be accompanied by changes in discourse and attitudes towards the Palestinian people, including the Arab citizens of Israel. If the state wants to integrate the latter into its economy, it cannot continue to exclude Arab representatives from government . It cannot continue to view them as traitors. Without the political integration of the Arabs, the program will dwindle to “ink on paper.”

The second change, no less essential, must occur in Arab society. What’s the use of talking about cultural budgets if books and plays are censored by local Arab institutions? What’s the use of improving public transport if women are expected to stay at home? How can you encourage the youth to embrace modernity if you portray the West as heretic? Just as the Israeli government cannot promote equality while inciting to racism, so the Arab leadership cannot promote equality when it refuses to recognize men and women as equals, or when it censors expression, or when it ostracizes those who live free from religion and tradition.

Nonetheless there is room for optimism. This government’s “historic decision” shows that reality is stronger than dogma or racist ideology. It also reflects the desire of the Arab citizen to exercise his or her citizenship. This, despite preachers who seek to return Arab society to the days of the Prophet. The government’s decision symbolizes the fact that, despite rift and division, Israeli society is advancing toward civil equality. A thousand racist laws and prohibitions will not prevent this.

• Translated by Bob Goldman

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Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is astonished and confused, Education Minister Naphtali Bennett is hurt and bewildered. How did it come to this? The present wave of protests and stabbings causing panic and horror in Israel was unexpected. How did an “old piece of shrapnel in the butt” (Bennett’s metaphor for the Palestinians under occupation) become a threat to the heart of the nation? It’s incomprehensible, it just can’t be, it goes against all the appraisals.

True, just before he slammed the door shut behind him, US Secretary of State John Kerry warned them that the third intifada was on the way, but they chuckled to themselves and said “Good riddance.” After all, who do Kerry and US President Barack Obama think they are, daring to warn Israel? They don’t even grasp the fact that the real danger is Iran, and that the Palestinians will get along with Israel just fine if only the Americans and the rest of the world would stop egging them on.

Netanyahu thinks he offered the Palestinians something far better than a tiny failed state: he offered them an “economic peace” that would douse their thirst for independence. And indeed, the patent was effective for a certain time: opinion polls suggested that the Palestinians were not interested in an uprising, and that the 150,000 civil servants constituted a firm base of support for the Palestinian Authority (PA). For PA President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the security coordination with Israel, based on the persecution of Hamas, is in the Palestinian national interest.

Hamas too has no desire for another round of violence. It is still licking the terrible wounds it received in the last war, not to mention the enormous pressure that Egypt is exerting on it. A Qatari representative is negotiating with Israel, and trucks loaded with fine goods are supposed to ease the hardships of the siege on Gaza. When Abu Mazen has no interest in an intifada, and Hamas doesn’t want war, Netanyahu can rest on the laurels of occupation and turn to critical issues like passing its budget. He can dream of quiet until the next elections, which are some years down the road. The current coalition of 61 Knesset members (out of 120) is not comfortable, but there is no reason why more parties, such as Yitzhak Herzog’s Labor or Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu, shouldn’t join in the future. The post of Foreign Minister awaits whichever of them jumps in.

This is an ideal situation for Israel’s messianic right wing. It is to be found in the heart of the Likud, not just in Bennett’s Habayit Hayehudi. Under the patronage of a messianic government, the “price tag” gangs go out into the West Bank to promote the messianic idea by destroying agricultural lands and property, as well as harming Palestinians—even burning a family in its home— if the High Court annoys them. The army operates alongside the settlers, backing them as they spread terror. The army also fulfills the daily tasks of managing the occupation, directing the checkpoints, and indiscriminately firing on civilians. As if all this were not enough, Netanyahu’s ministers undertake strange projects, like trying to incorporate aspects of ancient Hebrew law into legislation or encouraging groups that seek to build the “third temple” on the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Suddenly they make themselves over as enlightened liberals, naming freedom of worship as the basis for the Jews’ right to pray there. They mean to show the world that the Temple Mount is at last “in our hands” (as the Paratroopers said on conquering the place in 1967).

But all the calculations have now been proved wrong. Netanyahu and his partners forgot to consider another factor with an important role in the arena. Till now this factor has not been thought likely to upset the balance. It is not in the occupied territories and it has no Qassam rockets or explosive belts; it merely spreads an ideology. The factor is Sheikh Raed Salah, a citizen of Israel. He is based in Um al-Fahm, his father is a former policeman, and he once served as the town’s mayor. Thus he is very familiar with the Israeli political system. It was this Sheikh Salah who coined the slogan, “Al-Aqsa is in danger” in order to attract supporters. Like its sister slogan on the Israeli right, “Peres will divide Jerusalem,” Salah’s slogan has proven its efficacy.

But these are not just slogans. Each is a kind of code, expressing an ideological and political agenda. It is not by chance that both slogans entered the public arena in the same year, 1996—a formative year for both the Likud and the Islamic Movement. After participating in the incitement that led to Rabin’s assassination a year earlier, Netanyahu campaigned successfully against Shimon Peres in the 1996 elections. In the same campaign, the Islamic Movement decided to take part in elections for the first time. But the Northern Branch of that movement, led by Sheikh Salah, came out against cooperating with the state’s institutions, refused to take part, and split from the rest of the Islamic Movement. 1996 was also the year that Netanyahu opened the tunnel along the Western (“Wailing”) Wall, enflaming the issue of Al-Aqsa. In response, Salah convened the first mass assembly of his new movement in Um al-Fahm’s soccer stadium. Here he voiced the slogan “Al-Aqsa is in danger.”

And now after nearly 20 years they meet again. Though Netanyahu insists he has no intention of “disturbing the status quo on the Temple Mount”, he leads a messianic rightwing government that is free of all constraints. “If I am elected to another term in office, no Palestinian state will be established,” he promised in his desperate speech on the evening of Election Day. But Sheikh Salah too is free of all constraints. He left the mayor’s office a long time ago and has become “Sheikh Al-Aqsa”, the most revered persona in Palestine. With the support of Al-Jazeera, which is owned by Qatar, he sets the tone. As Netanyahu provides him with endless excuses for friction, Salah grasps every opportunity to retaliate in the same coin. Together they create a primordial world nurtured by messianic visions that threaten to engulf us all.

Let there be no mistake: both leaders are realistic, each keeping a close eye on the civil wars that have rocked the region since the Arab Spring, but each understands reality very differently and reaches conclusions that suit his worldview. In the collapse of Yemen, Syria and Iraq, and in the chaos of Egypt, Netanyahu sees proof that the Palestinian question has ceased to be the focus of the Middle East conflict, that the crumbling Arab world does not constitute a strategic threat to Israel, and that consequently there is no urgent need for peace with the Palestinians. From this he surmises that the occupation is here to stay and that the Palestinians must get used to it.

For Sheikh Salah, the wars in the region are another kind of opportunity. His ideological partners have set up an Islamic state in Mosul in Iraq and in Raqqa in Syria. They are on their way to Darnah in Libya and al-Mulqa in southern Yemen. The West’s ineffective war on ISIS is additional proof that the days of the messiah are drawing near: during a demonstration in front of Al Aqsa, the sheikh’s deputy, Kamal Khatib—before the astonished MKs of Balad (an Arab party)—promised to establish the Islamic Caliphate in Jerusalem after vanquishing the occupation.

In this limited sense, both Netanyahu and Salah are proving themselves to be able leaders. Each is drawing his people along with their various parties and movements. Yair Lapid spreads his racism while standing with Netanyahu in his “war on terror”; Labor’s Herzog makes every effort to outflank Netanyahu on the right, proposing a siege, an iron fist, and even a “regional council” for managing the conflict. The latter, says Herzog, will consist of enlightened regimes like those of General Sisi in Egypt and the royal houses of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. But Netanyahu chooses to manage the conflict himself. On the other side, Salah proves that it is he who sets the agenda among Arabs in Israel, exploiting the despair of the Palestinian people on both sides of the Green Line. From Jerusalem to Sakhnin, all Arab parties without exception are dragged after him, while their leaders follow Salah, declaiming, “In spirit, in blood, we will redeem you Al-Aqsa.”

Netanyahu and Salah dominate public discourse. The 30 seats that Netanyahu got during the last elections, a remarkable achievement by itself, were achieved by bashing the Arabs. This is the working premise of every average Israeli politician. If Herzog wants to be prime minister, he too must move rightwards. The same dynamic can be found among Israel’s Arabs. Arab politicians know they only stand to lose voters if they challenge what the Sheikh says. Salah does not participate in the elections, because he and the Salafists believe democracy is heresy, but voters respond to his influence. Arabs have lost all faith in the government and the prime minister. They are certain that everything Netanyahu says is a lie, while everything the Sheikh says is revered. The Prime Minister and the Sheikh have usurped the reasoning powers of their followers, and the two peoples, motivated by contradictory messianic visions, are rushing towards the point of no return.

Since this is the case, Netanyahu has taken recourse to the ultimate wonder-drug by outlawing the Sheikh. He has overcome Fatah and vanquished Hamas, but now an even more extreme threat has appeared, and he is desperately trying to suppress it. History shows that the subjection of Fatah brought Hamas, and the suppression of Hamas led to al-Qaeda; the suppression of Sheikh Salah will bring an even more extreme leader. The response to Jewish messianism is Islamic messianism.

If we do not create an Arab-Jewish democratic front that can tilt the scales away from the messianic agenda, we will descend into an intractable religious war. Netanyahu is leading us there, and that is why we must send him packing. As for Sheikh Salah and his adherents, the best way of neutralizing their influence is to put an end to the occupation, create a real democracy, and ensure equality and social justice for all.

– Translated by Yonatan Preminger

The post The prime minister, the sheikh, and the messiah(s) first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

The Prime Minister’s Conference on Minorities, held on Oct. 29, 2013, was entitled “Growth in Partnership.” PM Binyamin Netanyahu and senior ministers took part, including the “brothers in arms” Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Economics Minister Naftali Bennett, as well as Education Minister Shay Piron and Bank of Israel Governor Karnit Flug. The speakers gave stirring speeches full of promises to boost the political and economic integration of Israel’s Arab citizens, and to dismantle barriers to enable the full business potential of the Arab sector to be used. Higher education was emphasized along with employment, real estate, and fields in which government incentives could encourage economic growth in the Arab sector.

One step forward, two steps back

This conference is an expression of government efforts to demonstrate change in its policies towards the Arab population. The government has been holding such a conference each year since 2007, providing an opportunity for leaders to proclaim their commitment to the Arab sector and the need for positive discrimination. The initiative began during Ehud Olmert’s term as prime minister, and at that time senior representatives of the Arab population also participated (this year no Arab political leader attended).

Until a few years ago the government almost totally ignored the Arab population and swept its concerns under the rug. Now it has suddenly recognized that there is a problem and demonstrated its willingness – at least in words – to deal with it. An expression of this new approach can be seen in the critical report compiled by Prof. Eran Yashiv and Bank of Israel researcher Nitsa Kasir, which was published in May 2013. This report won official recognition, and Yashiv – who gave a speech at this year’s conference – commented that in a recent meeting with Economics Minister Bennett, the latter was ready to listen.

The new approach is reflected in other ways too: about half of the employment guidance centers opened in recent years have been located in Arab towns; the government has set itself the measurable target of increasing workforce participation of Arab women from the current 20% to 40% by 2015; a budget has been allocated for developing public transportation in large Arab towns which, till recently, had none at all; 400 million shekels (about $110 million) have been earmarked for developing industrial zones in the Arab sector; and for the first time in history, the Higher Education Council certified a university in the Arab city of Nazareth.

The conference’s panel on employment was opened by Minister Bennett. In his animated speech, he explained the need to overcome prejudice and take on Arabs holding academic degrees in industry, especially ICT (hi-tech). He also called on Arab youth, saying, “Don’t give up your chance to integrate into the State of Israel and create here a future for yourselves, and we, as the government, declare that we will not give up on you.” He went on to wonder how it is that only 2% of Arabs who have studied programming are taken on in the ICT sector. “After all,” he said, “the talents we’re after are not found only among members of one people or one religion. They are spread around everywhere! We must open our minds and take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself.”

Encouraging words, but Bennett would have done well to direct them at himself and at the members of his government. As noted by Amnon Beeri Sulitzeanu, co-director of the Abraham Funds Initiative, Bennett’s declarations do not sit well with his own political party’s agenda. Bennett, chair of the rightwing Habayit Hayehudi party, is an old friend of prejudice. How does Bennett intend to take on Arab degree holders in the public and private sectors when he himself proposes legislation that would turn Israel’s Arabs into second-class citizens? Right now the government is promoting a law which will discriminate against all those who did not do military or national service, in getting work, in their studies, in buying property and in other areas of life – all this in the guise of benefits to those who served.

Between propaganda and reality

But the fine hall at Tel Aviv University where the conference was held, where all speakers – Jews and Arabs alike – belong to the spruce and orderly upper middle classes, is very different from what one sees in the Arab towns. Here visitors will find poverty and hardship, and the gap between Arabs and Jews is growing. The problem is not merely the hypocrisy of the rightwing, busy inciting against Arabs on a daily basis while calling for us to overcome prejudice at media-covered conferences. The problem is far deeper: it is connected to the basic mood in Israel today, a mood which empties the prime minister’s conference of content.

Fundamental and profound discrimination against the Arab population is the cornerstone of the State of Israel. Positive discrimination for Arab towns, designating land for industrial and commercial development, constructing public and residential buildings, increasing the educational and welfare budget, and investing in infrastructure – all this requires billions of shekels which the government has no intention of spending. It won’t even spend such sums on Jewish towns in the periphery – it will certainly not spend them on Arab towns. And without these sums, as Yashiv explained in his excellent lecture, small initiatives – important though they are – are liable to become barriers to the greater change that is so crucial.

Indeed, as long as the present government continues its blatantly racist policies, such as the decision to establish a Jewish town near Arad at the expense of an Arab village that has existed there for 50 years, all its words on equality for Arabs are a bad joke. (See this article from Haaretz.)

The government has failed miserably to increase the number of Arabs in the state service sector – an issue entirely in government hands, requiring no special resources. It didn’t even achieve its target of increasing the proportion of Arabs in this sector to 10% by 2012: the percentage today stands at 8.5%. This is particularly sobering when one remembers that the Arabs make up 20% of Israel’s citizens. Despite certain steps to integrate Israeli Arabs in the economy since 2010, the gaps between Jews and Arabs are still growing.

Another failure is linked to Israel’s economic structure and only indirectly affects the Arabs as part of the poverty-stricken periphery. The economy today does not create sustainable jobs in quantities that would enable thousands of new workers to be hired. On this issue we should listen to the words of Zeev Rotem, founder and CEO of Rotem Strategy, in an interview he gave to Tali Heruti-Sover (The Marker, Oct. 27, 2013). He said that the “excellent” statistics on the state of employment in Israel are nothing but deception; most jobs offered today are part-time or seasonal, with wages so low that they do not even meet the most basic needs of the worker. About a third of Israeli workers today are in part-time positions. In other words, approximately one million men and women are not in full-time employment. The fact that the poverty rate in Israel is the highest among OECD countries isn’t a coincidence, he says. This is not a case of laziness – it’s the economy, which is creating more and more destitute workers.

A policy for the elites

In light of the above, how should we understand the aims of the conference? There can be no doubt that the government’s change of approach towards Israel’s Arab citizens was due to its desire to join the OECD, which it did in 2010. An OECD report of that year said that Israeli Arabs suffer severe discrimination, and it conditioned Israel’s membership on fundamental changes in its policies toward this population. According to Raed Mualem, Vice President of the Nazareth Academic Institute, even the decision to allow the opening of a university in the Arab City of Nazareth was the result of a specific OECD demand (Al-Arab website).

On the one hand, the Israeli establishment is willing to make certain changes to keep the OECD leaders happy, since membership in the organization brings many clear strategic advantages in the global market. On the other hand, there is an understanding that the backwardness of the Arab sector in terms of employment, economy and education is pulling Israel’s economy backwards too, and there is a real danger that Israel will become a third-world country, as Israeli Arabs and the ultraorthodox Jews grow in numbers relative to the productive and educated population. According to research published in the days leading up to the Israel Democracy Institute’s Caesarea Conference in November, the Arabs and ultraorthodox will together make up half of Israel’s population by the year 2059 if current trends continue (source.)

In particular, there is a growing awareness in Israeli establishment circles that the Arab population is a powder keg, and as long as no resources are set aside for welfare and for dealing with unemployment and poverty, we are all approaching an explosion. This explosion will find expression in increasing crime rates and extreme trends towards separatism and isolationism, nationalist, religious and anti-Israeli sentiments.

But since the government has no intention of turning the present reality upside down, it focuses on the big promise of the Arab educated middle class, which constitutes a reservoir of wasted talent. It bases itself on the Arab economic elite, which is characterized by pragmatism and makes do with what Netanyahu calls “economic peace” with reference to the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories (meaning that while Israel refuses to accept a political solution and recognize Palestinian national rights, it is ready to give economic incentives to a certain social class, thus replacing the struggle for peace and equality with a narrow economic agenda). The Arab middle class in Israel is comprised of university graduates who are willing to work hard for a relatively low salary in order to get into the job market.

There is no vision of social mobility behind the declarations at the conference. Arab graduates who were taken on at Teva, Super-Pharm and Intel are not ambassadors of social change; rather, they are an example of the fact that one can succeed if one turns one’s back on the desolation of one’s people in the Arab towns. The government is under the illusion that the integration of these educated Arabs in the Israeli economy will create opposition to the Arab leaders, whose popularity is anyhow in decline. And indeed, one cannot but notice that, in contrast to the prominence of Israeli Jewish leaders at the conference, not a single prominent Arab public figure attended – even though hundreds of Arab businesspeople and NGO workers filled the hall.

We can conclude that the conference’s debates did not reflect a fundamental change of policy, but an attempt to skim the cream of the Arab elite – while accepting that the problems of the vast majority of the Arab population are too huge and too severe to be dealt with.

Assaf Adiv, WAC MAAN General Director, attended the panel on employment at the Prime Minister’s Conference on Minorities.

• Translated from the Hebrew by Yonatan Preminger

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While waiting for the route 25 bus in north Tel Aviv, I pondered whether to pull out an Arabic newspaper. Would it be better to read the Hebrew text in order to reduce the tension, I wondered, so that the elderly lady he lady next to me wouldn’t be frightened? After all, what does is an Arab woman to doing in this beautiful, serene part of Tel Aviv? There are no malls or Super-Pharm branches for her to work at. The kind of traditional thoughts that go through the mind of a trespasser, preparing herself for the moment when she is caught, knowing what to say. And despite desperately wanting to read the annoying interview published in the local Arabic newspaper, the Hebrew text won.

Finally the bus arrived. I got on, took a seat, and before pulling out the newspaper out of the bag, I stopped again to consider, is it worth it? Would it make people swap their seats? Pull their bags into their laps? Do they know at this moment I am an Arab? Not sure, there have been some who said that I actually look like a Yemenite Jew. Suddenly the thought strikes me, what would have happened if I were a black African woman? What is certain is that I would have been saved those doubts. My identity would scream out and ooze out of me, because the identity of the black person is in being a black person, nothing more. Beyond the exterior colour, that person does not exist as a human being. So there is no prospect that such a person would surprise you. It’s good, it’s not threatening. And lo and behold, it was a liberating thought. I decided that from now on, I’m black, and being that I have every right to pull out the black people’s newspaper and read it. That is the legitimate thing which is expected.

I delved into the interview but I got dragged out again by shouting, screaming really, coming from the back of the bus. What happened? Everyone was yelling. An old man, of a Mizrahi appearance, had slapped a 17-18 year old boy who looked like a sweet nerd, and pushed him violently from his seat. And it was not as if there was a lack of seats available. The sweety rose, and the vulgar so-and-so took his place. I really felt sorry for the boy, he looked like he was on the verge of crying. You could tell that he managed to control himself because he is a man. Almost instantly I found out what kind of man he wants to be. Out of nowhere a young beautiful redhead appeared, and started a conversation with the boy. In fluent English She apologised, and said she had never before seen such an occurrence. Things like that do not happen in Israel. She calmed him down and welcomed the new immigrant from Texas. And the conversation went on and on, about this and that, until I just about had a headache. I could not concentrate on the interview for which I had almost risked making a scene on the bus and scaring away its passengers. Then came the interesting question, where do you want to serve? In the Special Forces, he answered, in the Duvdevan unit [which operates mainly on the West Bank.]

I did not know what to do with compassion I felt for him a few minutes earlier. What do I do with it and to where do I consign it. And the more I looked at him the more I saw the face of a kid, a baby really, so sweet and innocent. Someone who does not know that people in Israel fight each other if not worse, and who doesn’t know that we are not all polite and apologetic redheads who speak fluent English. She wished him luck and went off while he became even more embarrassed and alien than before, continuing to sit and listen to music and play the iPhone like any other kid.

Two minutes later that vulgar so-and-so got up from his seat and prepared to alight at Allenby Street. He stood right in front of my face. I had just received a phone call from my husband, should I take it or not? At that moment that was the question. If he is willing to beat up an American who immigrates to Israel in order to die and kill for it, what would he do to me? And before I went through too many scary scenarios, I took the call. In the fluent Arabic of this curly black woman I said: “I’m delayed at work, there is a chance that you can cook?” And the vulgar so-and-so, shot a few glances at my direction, smiled and almost laughed. Well, I remember, Arabic is probably much easier for him.

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