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A Silent Arab Spring Is Sprouting in Israel

(Los Angeles Jewish Journal) David Suissa - I was thinking about Rep. Rashida Tlaib's accusation last week that Israel is an "apartheid" state while at a cafe in Mamilla mall in Jerusalem. Next to my table sat a young Muslim woman wearing hip jeans and an elegant head scarf, ordering lunch and working on her laptop. You can read a thousand tweets and media commentaries, but when you actually walk the streets, "apartheid" is probably the last word you'd want to use to describe this place. As Arab-Israeli Yoseph Haddad recently asked: Is Samer Haj Yehia, the chairman of Israel's largest bank, Leumi, living under an apartheid regime? And what of Dr. Masad Barhoum, director general of Galilee Medical Center, or George Karra, the Supreme Court justice? And what of the Arab doctors, lawyers and police officers, the Arab members of Knesset and the ministers? Are they living in an apartheid state too? The prosaic reality of Arab-Jewish relations is driven by answers to simple questions, such as: Am I allowed to have a coffee here, to get a university degree there, to hang out at this park, to get a job in this hotel, to vote for this candidate, to take my kids to this hospital? The answers are the sharpest rebuttal to the apartheid charge. Many Arab citizens are still bitter about Israel's very existence. But for the first time in Israel's history, an Arab-Muslim party is part of its governing coalition. This is a hopeful sign that pragmatic needs in the Arab sector are superseding the ideological toxins that feed passions but leave stomachs empty. That would be in keeping with the new spirit of the Abraham Accords, which are reshaping Israel-Arab relations around mutual interests.
2021-10-04 00:00:00
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