Israel's Dead End: We Don’t Have the Luxury of Despair - Opinion - Haaretz.com
Life is joy: To breathe fresh air, to be enchanted by blue skies, to be warmed by the sun, to take pleasure in the wind playing in children’s hair, to wait for surprising things. But when sheer terror replaces the joy it is no longer life, but a nightmare.
Two million Arab citizens live in a prolonged nightmare. The constant reports – here a murder, there people wounded, gunfire and an atmosphere of fear have made life a via dolorosa. And when there is no good news beyond the dark horizon, Israeli Arabs feel crushed between sadness and anxiety. And living in constant anxiety, they behave like robots, for there can be no creativity in the shadow of fear. Fear keeps to the ground, while creativity seeks to soar. The reality is horrifying because, yes, the sword is mightier than the pen; the specter of death is stronger than the determination to go on.
Israel’s Arab population lives in a terrible reality not just because of the authorities’ “failure,” but a “deliberate failure,” as former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon called it. There is failure and there is failure, but here we are dealing with engineered failure. In the beginning, only a few people understood this; today, even on the right they understand it is a treacherous deception. There is an Arab _expression_ that says, “Even if you’re a rat, never betray someone who’s put his trust in you.” And who do we entrust our lives with, if not the law enforcement agencies? Yes, the state is betraying its Arab citizens.
Here is the proof of the contempt for Arab lives: Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security service, said that “if the state involves [the agency] in every complex problem it’s faced with, Israel will become a different country.” The killing of 160 Arabs in eight months is no longer a “complex problem,” Bar says, but rather a fundamental threat to the personal safety of each and every Israeli.
It is not only about the casualties, but about an entire society that lives under conditions of war, a war of life and death. And, if the authorities entrusted with peoples’ personal security have no solution, what are they there for? I say this without entering into the debate over whether or not to involve the Shin Bet.
Family members and members of the Druze community mourn before the funeral of three of the four murdered in last night's shooting in Abu Sanan last week.Credit: Fadi Amun
On the other hand, one of the nastiest reactions comes from “our side.” They address a community that is bleeding and politely “explain” that if its leaders had given a pass to the injustices of the previous government, it would not be drowning in the blood of 160 victims. The message is clear: Israel’s Arab citizens have to be total doormats. They must say thank you when their homes are razed, support the law that separates their families and now they are being asked to support the apartheid law against members of their people in the occupied territories. In short, they are supposed to stop being themselves.
And all this nastiness is hurled at the Arabs when the one who actually brought down the previous government was its head, Naftali Bennett, whose car ran out of gas in the face of the Netanyahu bloc’s venomous attacks.
A friend told me the government’s goal is to sow despair among Israel’s Arabs so that they pack their bags and leave. I told him that many Jews are thinking about emigrating. It’s two sides of the same coin: To sow terror among the Arabs and despair among the Jews, so that they won’t recognize themselves when they look in the mirror. But from the nadir in which both peoples now find themselves, perhaps a new spirit of a shared fate will emerge.
Residents of the Arab town of Tira protest outside the town's police station where the town's director general, Abed al-Rahman Kashua, was murdered last week.Credit: Moti Milrod
During the impressive March of the Dead in Tel Aviv this month, I was witness to the many Jews who came in solidarity. The fact that the March of the Dead took place proved that Arabs, like every living people, are capable of doing the unexpected and breaking a vicious circle by dint of determination.
Just like what happened among the Jews, the initiative to protest against the judicial overhaul originated in the street. Because, if the protest had been entrusted to the parliamentary opposition, it would not have survived a day.
What else can we do? Wherever we turn, we have only one option left, which is to believe in our power to bring change. It’s depressing, but we don’t have the luxury of despair.