Critical Race Theory must make its way to Israel

Critical Race Theory, no matter how hated it is by conservatives in the US, has, in my opinion, helped many white liberals to realize the scope of oppression of the United States government on black people. It made white people who were willing to learn, a bit more aware of the privilege they possess. 

That is what Israel needs. It needs education. Israelis must know how oppressive their government is; otherwise, progress will never be made. 

Racial disparities have always been present in the US. However, after the Civil War, most white Americans have simply chosen to ignore reality, to ignore their huge headstart over every other race in the country. 

In the same way, Israelis love to discard the suffering of Palestinians and love to point at terrorism as a just cause for it. Even if tens of thousands of Palestinians would take part in terrorist attacks, even then we couldn’t blame an entire ethnic group of millions of Palestinians for terrorism. In reality, however, much less Palestinians are actual terrorists, and Israelis still love to believe and preach about how Palestinians, and Arabs, in general, are an inherently violent group. This is quite similar to the way white Americans loved to talk about the ‘violent tendencies’ of black Americans. 

There is, obviously a reason as to why Israel and the US are best friends. They are just so similar to each other that they simply cannot stay away from one another.

Israel needs reckoning, an ethnic and religious one. Its citizens must understand the reality and the moral severity its military puts a foreign people through; a movement based on a similar thesis like CRT could help achieve the equality the country’s founding fathers loved to preach about. When I think about coexistence, something that liberal Israelis love to talk about in regard to Israeli Arabs specifically, I can’t help but feel shame that my only experience of it is standing in line at the local Rami Levi, where most of the employees are Arabs. 

When education is segregated, where is an Israeli child or young adult supposed to ‘coexist’ with Arabs and not just their fellow Jews?

If the two groups never see each other in a natural environment, how are Jews supposed to empathize with Palestinians, people they get to see even less than Israeli Arabs?

Same with segregation in the US. They definitely didn’t solve the problems when education was largely desegregated, but the forming of a connection between the two groups is automatically easier when the physical boundary of a classroom wall is removed. 

Israel needs Critical Race Theory so Jews know about the hurdles Arab Israelis, and the suffering Palestinians face. 

Automatic distrust arises when an Israeli Jew is talking to an Israeli Arab, and automatic hate boils in an Israeli Jew when they see or hear about a Palestinian. 

How is this a normal society? How is ‘death to Arabs’ even close to normal on a Jerusalem Day parade? How is hate an automatic, accepted feeling?

It’s critical that another Israeli generation doesn’t grow up hating, hating its natural neighbors and brothers. The only way to do that is through compassion. 

Compassion and even more importantly than that, military detachment from the West Bank.