To end the stalemate, we need courage and hope

It was a funeral like no other I had ever been to. We were burying a large number of soldiers who had been killed in Lebanon. This was back in the 1980s. There were senior officers from the IDF and Israeli flags. And when the service began, it was conducted in Arabic. Because these soldiers were Arab Israelis, their religion was Islam, and they came from Shibli, a small town on the slopes of Mount Tabor.

When someone says that Israeli citizens who speak Arabic or whose religion is Islam cannot serve in the government as ministers, I think of those young men whose lives were cut short wearing the uniforms of the IDF.

Which brings me to 1948. The British Mandate was expiring and the Zionist leadership in Palestine had to declare independence. In an extraordinary sentence worth repeating today, Ben Gurion and his colleagues wrote: “We appeal – in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months – to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.” It is worth reading that sentence carefully.

It acknowledges that the Jewish community in the land of Israel was under attack by enemies that would show them no mercy. (This is something that Israelis continue to experience even today.) But even under those circumstances, it promises “full and equal citizenship”. But it doesn’t stop there.

It gets specific and offers to the Arab residents of the new Jewish state “due representation” in its government. This is not some vague promise for the distant future. It is what the founders of Israel committed the new state to doing. And nearly four decades later, it has not been realised.

For thirty years, Netanyahu has controlled much of the political discourse in the country. He sets the parameters, decides what questions can be asked and what answers given. After years of paying lip service to the idea of a two-state solution, he decided he no longer supported it. And as a result, the two state solution is supported by only a minority of Jewish political leaders, who are branded as “traitors” by the far Right and they face the constant risk of political violence of the kind that killed Yitzhak Rabin.

Netanyahu also decided – for entirely selfish reasons – that while the anti-Zionists of the Haredi communities were welcome to be part of an Israeli government, the non-Zionists who were Arabs were not. And since then, only the occasional brave Israeli politician (and today that pretty much just Yair Golan) challenges this.

By disavowing the commitment to full political equality for all Israeli citizens, Netanyahu has set a trap for the opposition parties which they have walked into again and again. He is able to form governments because his opponents cannot. It is political suicide for leaders of the anti-Netanyahu camp to embrace the ‘no Arabs’ rule. But they do it anyway.

There is a way out. And it begins with courage and hope.

The leaders of the four main opposition parties must speak the truth to the Israeli public. If they decide to continue excluding the Arab parties, they guarantee that Netanyahu and his allies remain in power for the years to come. That is the truth which they must share with their voters. If some of them promised in their campaigns not to do that, they can change their minds. And they can explain why. They are not accountable to Netanyahu, and need to be brave enough to speak back to him. They can start by reciting that sentence from the Declaration of Independence – and then turning it into a reality.

And if they follow the path of courage and truth-telling, there is hope. Not just the hope of bringing an end to the worst government in Israel’s history, but hope of what a new Israel in a new Middle East can achieve. Imagine leaders of countries like Saui Arabia, Lebanon or Syria arriving in Israel and being met by ministers in the Israeli government who speak Arabic and who share their religious faith. Imagine the model it sets of a country where all citizens have equal rights, and where they are no longer divided by language, culture or religion.

Having Israeli Arabs as ministers in our government seems to some as a burden, a price to pay for obtaining power. But it is much more than that: it is a tremendous opportunity to ensure the survival, growth and prosperity of the State of Israel. The next few days will be a test of all Israel’s political leaders and we will see who has the vision and the courage to stand up for “full and equal citizenship and due representation” for Israel’s Arab citizens – including the families of those who fought and died wearing the uniform of the IDF.