Salman Masalha
Excluding a fifth of Israel’s citizens from their political calculations is not worthy of being called the left.
Showing posts with label Arabs in Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arabs in Israel. Show all posts
The Nakedness of the Israeli Left
Mosque Loudspeakers Disturb The Arabs Too
People in the Arab world suffer greatly from this worrying phenomenon and are seeking a solution to it, and Muslim clerics are likewise working to resolve it.
When Arabs Were Freedom Fighters for Israel
There was a time when 'Israeli independence' was the chief focus of the left’s leaders, Jews and Arabs alike.
Sayed Kashua || Israeli Arabs' only hope at the polls
Sayed Kashua ||
Israeli Arabs' only hope at the polls
Dear Salman,
First of all, I hope you’re in good health, and that we will be able to meet again in Jerusalem. Forgive me for writing you in a newspaper and not in a personal letter. But this time I felt it was my duty to publish a letter in response to your recent opinion piece in these pages ("Why I’m voting Meretz and not for the Arab ticket," March 12), in the hopes that you will once again choose the path of Moshe Dayan and change your mind. Not necessarily about voting Meretz, but rather in making your crude comparisons, which to me are unrealistic, between Balad and Yisrael Beiteinu, and the Islamic Movement and Habayit Hayehudi.
I’m sure you’re aware of my views on jingoism and nationality, as well as my stance on religion and religious political parties. But when I read your article, I felt you were doing a great injustice – not only to the new Joint List of Arab parties, but particularly to this newspaper’s readership.
I wondered why you chose to compare the Islamic Movement to Habayit Hayehudi, and not another religious movement like Shas. Of all the possibilities, why did you compare Balad’s nationalism to Yisrael Beiteinu, and not to the nationalism of Zionist Camp, or even that of Meretz?
Have the Islamic Movement and its representatives sought to rule over another people? Do they champion occupation and force other peoples off their land because of promises made in holy books?
Your description of Balad members as being in the vein of Yisrael Beiteinu was misleading, and constitutes an act of throwing sand in the eyes of the reader. It’s possible that some Balad supporters are guilty of jingoism, but comparing that party and its platform to Avigdor Lieberman’s party is a great sin. How can you compare a party that goes by the slogan “a state for all its citizens” to a party that considers Arabs a demographic threat, a fifth column, and as being representatives of terrorist organizations in the Knesset?
When have you heard a Balad MK call for the destruction of Israel, or for deporting citizens? Sadly, your article contained incitement reminiscent of Lieberman’s messages against Arabs.
May God forgive you, my friend, for prompting me to defend a religious party, and even a nationalist one. Although, if you’re wondering, yes – I believe concessions should be made when it comes to an oppressed minority on the issue of nationalism.
“If only there were a Palestinian state already,” a good friend and Balad supporter told me after I accused him of nationalism but not jingoism. “Just let there be a state and I’ll be the first to burn the flag,” he said.
Yes, we deserve some concessions. When I was young and optimism still flowed in my veins, I marched in protests against land appropriation, against the occupation and discrimination, and I remember how I acted when I heard some protesters shouting religious slogans, and others yelling jingoist ones.
How I had to bite my tongue, look for the group with the red flag under which Jews and Arabs marched together, still at the same protest, and remind myself that the overarching goal of the joint march – crying out together against discrimination and disenfranchisement – needs to be front and center.
I’m the last person who would support a schism between Arab and Jewish parties; I’ve always supported parties that feature a joint list. But I look at the Arab towns and I see the danger, the want, the crowding and violence that will only get worse without a fundamental change in the government’s policy toward its Arab citizens. We need a strong defense, a defense that no other party can currently offer Arabs.
It’s possible that I’m mistaken, Salman, my friend; it’s possible that there’s no room for hope. But I must say that Joint List head Ayman Odeh managed to instill some faith in me since last summer, full as it was of hatred, racism and blood, during which I felt that there would never be a common future together.
I saw Odeh facing Lieberman, and for the first time in many years, Lieberman didn’t scare me. He looked lackluster compared to the young politician who wouldn’t play into his hands. I saw Odeh and understood for the first time in many long months that there is still something to fight for, that a regime of segregation and fearmongering can be beaten, that it’s still possible to overthrow the government that silences the people, that it’s still possible to prevent a descent into the abyss of apartheid.
Odeh is the only one that has succeeded to instill in me the hope that there is still a chance of ending the occupation; that there is still a chance that we will be accepted as full citizens, including having roles in decision making and in land and resource allocation; that there is still a chance that we will stop being accused of treason and ingratitude when we aren’t satisfied with the crumbs and justifications we are fed by some of the decision makers; and that there’s still a chance that one day we will be full citizens with all that entails.
For that hope, for that faith, I am in Odeh’s debt, and because of that hope and faith I’m sorry that I am unable to vote.
“But it 40 days haven't passed,” my mother answered on the phone this week when I asked her to go out and vote.
“I know,” I answered my mother, busy mourning my father. “But, Mom, you have to.”
“Okay,” she gave in. “For you, for your children.”
“For all our children,” I told her.
*
Published: Haaretz, 17 Mar. 2015
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For Hebrew, press here
See: Why I'm voting Meretz
Why I’m voting Meretz
The
Joint List includes not only the equivalent of Yisrael Beiteinu of the
Arab street, in the form of the Arab nationalism of Balad; but also the
racist parallel of Habayit Hayehudi in the shape of the Islamic
Movement.
Salman Masalha ||
Why I’m voting Meretz
Who is a Zionist?
There is no national solution other than the geographic and national division of the land, with everything that implies: A Hebrew state on one side and an Arab one on the other.
Salman Masalha ||
Who is a Zionist?
Who is a Zionist?
Israel’s Arabs and liberals are no great leftists
The ‘leftists’ only want to find favor in the eyes of the West, while the Arabs are only looking for honorific titles in the Knesset.
Salman Masalha ||
Israel’s Arabs and liberals are no great leftists
Jews and Arabs in Israel live in two different worlds that rarely overlap. There are Arab towns and Jewish towns. There are also “mixed communities” that have both Arab and Jewish neighborhoods. In short, social apartheid.
What’s missing is an Israeli party
Israel’s decent Jewish citizens should vote only for parties that publicly state that Arab MKs must be part of any future government coalition.
Salman Masalha ||
Salman Masalha ||
What’s missing is an Israeli party
Israeli Arabs, don't give the Jewish State your vote
The Jews' election
The Arab MKs merely serve as a fig leaf that covers Israel's systematic racism. Arab citizens, boycott the elections.
Salman Masalha ||
Israeli Arabs, don't give the Jewish State your vote
Arab, speak Arabic
Salman Masalha ||
Arab, speak Arabic
Israel's Arab MKs can look to Jabotinsky for inspiration about how to achieve real equality between Arabic and Hebrew.
Arab, speak Arabic
Israel's Arab MKs can look to Jabotinsky for inspiration about how to achieve real equality between Arabic and Hebrew.
The whole tragedy in a nutshell
Salman Masalha ||
The whole tragedy in a nutshell
Ever since the two peoples, the Jews and the Palestinians, met in conflict on this small land they have been constantly plagued by the attempt to clarify the meaning of the concept “homeland.” It seems that this term is one of the most explosive in the discourse of both sides.
Answering Bibi and Libi
The answer to Netanyahu and Lieberman needs to come in the establishment of a social democratic front of the Israeli left. The ball is sitting in the court of the two Israeli parties Meretz and Hadash.
Salman Masalha ||
Answering Bibi and Libi
The Arabs are flocking back to the tribe
Salman Masalha ||
The Arabs are flocking back to the tribe
In the Jewish sector many voters didn’t bother to show up at the polling places for the municipal elections. Some commentators have linked the low turnout to the disappearance of the national political parties from the local scene. By way of contrast, the Arab sector flocked en masse to the polling stations in order to cast the right ballots. “A festival of democracy” is how the Hebrew media labeled the high voter turnout in the Arab sector.
The Arabs are flocking back to the tribe
In the Jewish sector many voters didn’t bother to show up at the polling places for the municipal elections. Some commentators have linked the low turnout to the disappearance of the national political parties from the local scene. By way of contrast, the Arab sector flocked en masse to the polling stations in order to cast the right ballots. “A festival of democracy” is how the Hebrew media labeled the high voter turnout in the Arab sector.
Israeli nationality – there’s no such animal
A lot of religious and nationalist sewage has flowed through the state of Israel’s streams since its establishment…
Salman Masalha ||
Israeli nationality – there’s no such animal
Salman Masalha ||
Israeli nationality – there’s no such animal
Share the defense burden? Let’s do it!
If the current Arab MKs had any imagination at all, they would submit their own bill obligating every citizen - regardless of ethnicity, religion, race, color and gender - to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Then we’d see how the 'knights of the equal burden' would vote.
Salman Masalha ||
Share the defense burden? Let’s do it!
Salman Masalha ||
Share the defense burden? Let’s do it!
The Islamic Movement is not the answer
Not unlike Jewish fundamentalism, the Islamic Movement is one of the damaging phenomena in Arab society in Israel. The optimal solution in the context of the volatile Israeli mix is legislation prohibiting the establishment of religious parties.
Salman Masalha ||
The Islamic Movement is not the answer
Salman Masalha ||
The Islamic Movement is not the answer
The invisible minority
The Oslo agreements between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel conclusively cut off the Arabs of Israel from the national solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...
Salman Masalha || The invisible minority
Salman Masalha || The invisible minority
There's no one to vote for
For Israeli Arabs, there's no one to vote for:
A secular, liberal, democratic and fair-minded Arab citizen can't vote for either parties that support the Butcher of Damascus and his ilk, as Hadash and Balad do, or a separatist Muslim party like UAL.
Salman Masalha || There's no one to vote for
Royal corruption
Is it conceivable that foreign governments are buying political parties and public figures in Israel?
Salman Masalha || Royal corruption
Salman Masalha || Royal corruption
Haim Baram | There is a Jewish-Arab left
I am sure that Salman Masalha's article ("You call this a left?," July 27 ) was flattering to Jewish readers and affirmed their prejudice, already pervasive, that most Arab citizens are nationalistic and that the affliction has even spread to Hadash and the Israeli Communist Party (Maki ). There is nothing more convenient for an oppressor than to receive assurances of his righteousness against the oppressed. My friend Masalha produced, as is his wont, a cogent article in which few could discern the barren moral and ideological landscape.
Masalha claims that "the left is supposed to bridge the gap and the national tension by positing a civic agenda..." From a few remarks of Maki's secretary general Mohammed Nafa, he concludes that such a left wing "does not exist."
Nafa was mistaken when he appeared to be supportive of the murderous tyrannical regime in Syria, but he was right when he said: "We will never surrender to the Israeli prostitution that is trying to portray Israel as a victim."
Nafa's priorities are certainly logical. Arab citizens cannot change the situation in North Korea, Iran or even in Syria. Their task is to fight here to free their people in Palestine and for full equal rights in Israel. Since the government of Israel and the United States have been collaborating for more than 40 years to preserve the oppression, Nafa sees the struggle against then as the most important thing of all.
The task of the left is not to bridge gaps by means of a civic agenda. That is the traditional task of the conservative-liberal bourgeousie. The left is supposed to fight for justice and equality, against oppression and the hegemony of force in the international arena. The national struggle of an oppressed people is the raison d'etre of the left; the nationalism of the fundamentalists in the United States and Israel, whose purpose is to perpetuate discrimination and repression, is unacceptable.
The Cuban revolutionaries believed that national emotions in Latin America were fuel for the anti-imperialist struggle. That was true then and it is true now.
There is therefore no symmetry between the nationalism of a settler in Kedumim and that of a resident of Gaza. Terror against civilians is unacceptable, but the intent of national unity in Gaza is to liberate the Palestinians from occupation and siege; the intent of national unity in the name of "Zionism" is to perpetuate the occupation and create an apartheid state here.
The uniqueness of Hadash is in the fact that the Arab citizens who support the movement identify with the national aspirations of their people; however, they reject not only terror but also the negation of the rights of the Jews here. Masalha also knows, and concedes halfheartedly, that Hadash educates toward Jewish-Arab brotherhood not only in Bat Yam or Tel Aviv, but in Sakhnin, Nazareth and Taibeh.
Nafa, as quoted by Masalha, does not say that he supports the evil regimes in Syria, Iran or Korea (and they are evil, make no mistake ). He only asserts that the Jewish-Arab left in Hadash must "be more involved" in the struggle against the Israeli and the American occupation. That is the opinion of everyone who is part of the socialist left.
North Korea is an abomination, but it must not serve good Israeli radicals as an excuse to vote for Meretz - which comes out against all wars after they are over - instead of Hadash, which blends a social and a political line that should engender widespread support.
Nafa must see to it that his positions are not perceived as supporting Syria and the wicked regime there. But when Masalha ignores the role of Israel and the United States in the regional and global arena, it helps the enemies of the left and the enemies of peace.
*
Published: Op-Ed, Haaretz, 1 August 2011
