DEH BISHARAT Good Thing the Arabs Aren’t in the Streets
IArticolo qui
t’s true that the “Jewish mind” can perform miracles, but let’s not underestimate the Arab mind, whose wonders can also be instructive.
For example, everyone asks why the Arabs don’t take to the streets and join their Jewish brethren in the rising wave of demonstrations against Benjamin Netanyahu and his socioeconomic policies, as well as his failed management of the coronavirus crisis. Especially since the Arabs are the first to be harmed by the economic damage, both personally and communally. Arab local authorities have gotten ridiculously low amounts of aid during the crisis compared to Jewish ones, primarily those at the top of the economic pyramid.
Let me explain. Arabs think first and take action afterward. They think that if they stage mass protests in Nazareth, Tamra, Rahat and Umm al-Fahm, then based on the rage level we have been witnessing lately – in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, on Balfour Street in Jerusalem and in the stormy protests in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods – one can guess that the conversation of billy clubs being conducted by police with the Jews will quickly turn into a harsh attack on Arabs.
Security forces would take potshots at Arabs from dozens of meters away, then explain to the journalists already biased against the protesters (Arabs, you know) that they felt their lives were at risk. Such things have happened; just turn the historical archives’ yellowing pages.
The demonstrators at Rabin Square are lucky that they aren’t Arabs. Otherwise it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that instead of patrol cars to lock-ups, we would be seeing funerals filling the streets. Unfortunately, that’s the situation in Israel. Every Arab seeking a loaf of bread is assumed to be hiding some nationalist conspiracy to crumble the Jewish state, and everyone enthusiastically buys into this lie.
On the other hand – and Arabs, as we know, think one or even 10 steps ahead – if one Arab had joined the demonstration in Jerusalem, and his nationalist instinct got the better of him and he wore a keffiyeh, or a black or red mask, here’s the headline that would certainly be coming out of Balfour, or from some court journalist: “The mufti’s grandchildren and their leftist friends are attacking the residence of the Jewish state’s prime minister.”
Now go try to explain to journalist Ben-Dror Yemini, who operates an X-ray machine that can detect malicious thoughts among Arabs, that the keffiyeh and crude “kova tembel” hats were, in better times, a symbol of Jewish-Arab fraternity. Perhaps some journalist with great copy-writing skills would describe it as the Sakhnin-Habima alliance.
On the other hand, Avishay Ben Haim, the intellectual rising star, will launch a series of incredible analyses of the unholy alliance between the “First Israel” and the “Tenth Israel” (meaning the Arabs), and Yedioth Ahronoth will print a huge front-page photo of a young man carrying a Palestinian flag under the headline, “Does he want work or the right of return?”
And so, in a charged national moment, when the tears are blurring our eyes, Yair Lapid will stand at attention to the words of some patriotic decree, embrace Bezalel Smotrich, bro of Lapid’s bro Naftali Bennett, and yalla – “Hatikva.”
But far from the commotion, the Arabs can say that their consciences are clear regarding the war on corruption. They’ve done theirs, and pretty well, too. Netanyahu and his bloc got only a tiny fraction of the Arab vote during the recent three elections. Those who must take to the streets now are those who woke up too late and voted for Netanyahu with heads held high, time after time, case after case, indictment after indictment.
If the penny has only now dropped for the Jewish masses, for the Arabs it dropped long ago. It’s good that people are starting to realize that he who starts by oppressing Arabs will move on to the Jews.
The goal is to establish a system of government based on justice and solidarity; the yellowing leaf known as the Netanyahu regime will drop off by itself. It’s good for the Jews to remove their own thorns. The Arabs have always been on the right side.
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