The Jewish-Arab Partnership We Missed
Yoav Segalovich’s decision to join Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, could have been a defining moment in Israeli politics. Here was a former deputy minister of public security, long identified with Israel’s security establishment, joining an Arab party and forging a new model of Jewish-Arab partnership. Such a move could have carried not only political but historical significance: the possibility that a Jewish Israeli might see Arab politics not as an arena to be monitored, nor as a pool of votes to be courted, but as a legitimate political partner. Precisely for that reason, it is difficult to ignore the sense of disappointment. Not because the partnership is unimportant, and not because it lacks potential, but because the language in which it was presented does not reflect the significance of the event. Instead of a historic declaration about changing relations between Jews and Arabs, we heard statements about fighting crime and about the Arab community’s obligation to share the “burden”; instead of a vision of full partnership, we heard references to Segalovich as an “independent player”; instead of a demand to rethink the meaning of citizenship, we heard hollow and noncommittal statements. An event that could have opened a new chapter in Israeli politics remained trapped in old and disappointing language.
The reason the event failed to generate the excitement it deserved has less to do with the issues of crime and national service themselves, both of which are important, than with the fact that focusing on them reveals Segalovich’s narrow and one-dimensional view of the community whose votes he is seeking. Both questions derive from a much broader political question: Are Arab citizens of Israel recognized as equal citizens in the state in which they live? Are they expected to share not only its obligations but also its rights? Is an Arab party a legitimate partner in government, or will it always remain a conditional partner, expected to support from outside, that – even if it declares its loyalty and recognizes the Jewish character of the state – will still be treated with suspicion, while its representatives are regarded as unfit to sit around the cabinet table? Anyone who fails to place these questions at the center of political discourse misses the significance of the very move he has chosen to make.
Segalovich’s narrow and one-dimensional approach is also evident in the two areas he emphasizes so strongly. Crime in Arab society is not a problem that can be solved through policing alone. It has developed within a reality of institutional weakness, prolonged and at times even deliberate neglect, and deep disparities in education, infrastructure, planning and construction, transportation, employment, economic development, and the functioning of Arab local authorities. The police must fight criminals, but a politician with a broader vision must also confront the reality from which crime has emerged. A genuinely visionary program should ask not only how many criminals have been arrested, but what future it offers a young person in an Arab town, what institutions are available to him, what education he will receive, what employment opportunities he will have, and how present the state will be in the environment in which he lives. Segalovich therefore should have emphasized that combating crime must be part of a broader process of civic repair. At precisely such a moment, he should have, if only briefly, set aside the police uniform and articulated a clear social and political vision.
The same approach is reflected in the question of Arab participation in national service. There is, of course, room for a public debate about the obligations of the state’s citizens. But national service cannot be made a precondition for equality. In a democratic state, equality is not a reward given to those who have fulfilled their obligations; on the contrary, only equality can make those obligations legitimate. Demanding that a citizen prove his loyalty while the state is not first required to prove that it deserves that loyalty reverses the proper order of things. Before speaking of sharing the “burden,” one must speak of civic equality; before asking for sacrifice, one must guarantee partnership; before demanding obligations, one must guarantee equal rights. And this is precisely the question that Segalovich has barely addressed: the question of equality and belonging.
The aspiration of Israel’s Arab citizens for equal partnership and integration into Israeli society is neither new nor something that began with Mansour Abbas. In 1963, during the period of military rule, representatives of Arab villages in the Galilee held a press conference in Tel Aviv and gave voice to the gap between their expectations and reality: “We stayed here because of our love for our lands, and out of hope for friendly treatment by the authorities, and we discovered the exact opposite.” The importance of this statement lies not in the complaint it expresses but in the hope reflected in it. The disappointment arises because the promise of belonging and equality was not fulfilled as it had been declared in the Declaration of Independence.
Arab literature in Israel expressed this pain more powerfully than any political declaration. In the poem “Identity Card” by the poet Mahmoud Darwish, the declaration “Write down: I am an Arab” is not merely a national declaration. It is the demand of a person who wants the state not to see him merely as a demographic fact or a security problem, but to recognize him as a human being with a name, a place, a memory, and a history. In a story by Emile Habibi, this feeling takes on an almost paradoxical form: a person can be born in the land and be a citizen of the state and still feel like a stranger: “My homeland? I feel like a refugee in a foreign land.” From this emerged expressions such as “strangers in their homeland” and “refugees in their homeland,” reflecting the experience of many Arab citizens of Israel. This is what Segalovich misses: the hardship of Arab society cannot be reduced to crime, building restrictions, or unrecognized villages, nor only to the question of national identity. It also encompasses a persistent desire to be part of the state without relinquishing the identity, culture, and historical memory from which it comes.
Segalovich’s blindness to the significance of the event he himself has created is apparent above all in his statement that, despite joining Ra’am, “he remains himself,” that joining an Arab party will not change him and that he intends to preserve his independence. Independence is a legitimate and even valuable personal right, but for someone seeking election within a party framework it cannot be treated as the whole story. If this is a moment of partnership, it is not enough for the Jewish politician to remain faithful to himself; he must also be willing to change through his encounter with the political world he has chosen to enter. More than that, if he seeks election with the support of Arab voters, he should declare his commitment to the needs of the community that has chosen him. If he “remains himself,” the entire partnership becomes almost paradoxical: the Arab is required to prove his loyalty to the state, while his Jewish representative “remains himself.” Would it not have been appropriate for him to declare his commitment to the faction of which he is a member? Would it not have been appropriate for him to emphasize his commitment to the struggle for integration and equality? Would it not have been appropriate for him to explicitly reject any possibility of seeing him as a potential voice in support of a “change government,” while his fellow members of the faction are regarded as illegitimate?
This is precisely where the historic potential of the move lay – and where Segalovich failed to rise to the occasion. He could have made equality not only the organizing principle of the partnership, but also declared that by doing so he was realizing a foundational principle of the Zionist movement.
That principle was articulated as early as the 1930s. Against the backdrop of the debates surrounding the partition proposal, David Ben-Gurion stated that the Jewish state that would emerge would have to grant its Arab citizens full equality in every sphere of life – in legislative institutions, the civil service, the public administration, the economy, and culture. He not only insisted that a Jewish state without complete equality for its inhabitants and citizens was inconceivable, but also declared that “in a Jewish state, an Arab could be elected prime minister or president.” This could have been precisely the connection Segalovich should have made: not to set equality against Zionism, but to present it as part of Zionism’s own vision. Not to say that Arabs must adapt themselves to the state, but that the state must remain faithful to the principles on which its establishment was founded.
From such a starting point, both the fight against crime and the question of national service would look different. If Arab society is an integral part of the state, combating crime is the state’s struggle to protect its citizens, not a project intended to “repair” a problematic sector. If Arab citizens are equal partners, the question of service can become a genuine discussion of shared civic responsibility rather than a test of loyalty. Only from a position of equality can one seriously speak of shared obligations; only from a sense of belonging can one ask for participation; and only through mutual recognition can a full partnership be built.
And this is the reason for the sense of missed opportunity. Not because Segalovich joined Ra’am, but because he joined it without understanding the significance of the event. He could have transformed the partnership from the political move of one individual into an act that challenged Israeli political consciousness itself. He could have turned the question on its head: not a demand that Arab society declare its loyalty to a Jewish state, but a demand that the Jewish state demonstrate its commitment to treating its citizens equally.
