Refusing Arab parties in gov't: Why are Israeli politicians handing its enemies a weapon? - opinion

Israel faces one of the most consequential elections in its history.

The decisions Israelis make on October 27 will determine more than who governs the country. They will test whether, after October 7 and the years of war that followed, Israel’s next government can defend the country while upholding a promise made at its founding: a Jewish homeland whose citizens enjoy equal political rights.

Since the horror of October 7, 2023, Jews around the world have faced a surge of hatred, intimidation, and propaganda. The claim that Zionism is racism and Israel an apartheid state has moved from the political fringes into universities, streets, and mainstream political debate.

A generation is being taught that the idea of a Jewish state is inherently racist. The accusation has spread well beyond criticism of Israeli policy, to Zionism and Jews who identify with it.

Israel cannot defeat that lie through public relations. It can defeat it by demonstrating what Zionism means. The place to begin is with David Ben-Gurion and Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

On May 14, 1948, as Israel was about to fight for its existence, Ben-Gurion proclaimed that the new state would “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its citizens irrespective of religion, race, or sex.”

The Declaration called upon Israel’s Arab inhabitants to participate in building the state “based on full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.”

These principles were proclaimed at the birth of the Jewish state.

October 7 changed Israel. Security has become an overriding concern for many Israelis. Anyone entrusted with governing the country must accept responsibility for its security and the obligations of public office.

That standard should apply equally to every prospective minister, Jewish or Arab. It should not become a presumption that Arab citizens, simply because they are Arab, are unfit to share that responsibility.

That distinction matters in this election. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit want to disqualify Arab parties from the election.

Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid’s B’Yachad party have publicly ruled out governing with Arab parties. Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar has ruled out the current Arab parties, citing their positions on Israel’s security and national obligations.

Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu and Yoaz Hendel’s Reservists-Economic party have rejected governing with Arab parties more categorically. Yair Golan and the Democrats have accepted the principle of Arab participation in a future coalition.

No political party, Jewish or Arab, has a right to sit in government. Rejecting a party because of its policies, conduct, or position toward Israel is legitimate democratic politics. But excluding Arab participation in government as a matter of principle is different.

If an Arab Israeli accepts the responsibilities of governing and defending Israel, ethnicity should not bar that citizen from the cabinet. To say otherwise betrays the words of Ben-Gurion and the promise contained in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

It also hands Israel’s enemies exactly the weapon they want. They have spent years redefining Zionism, portraying it not as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people but as a racist ideology.

Let's not betray Ben-Gurion

When Israeli politicians appear to exclude people from political power because they are Arab, their words are repeated around the world as evidence that Zionism means permanent Jewish political supremacy. Why give them that weapon?

Israel should do exactly the opposite. It should throw the lie that Zionism is racism back in the faces of those who use it to isolate Israel and intimidate Jews.

Every party seeking to lead the next government should state unequivocally that religion or ethnicity cannot disqualify an Israeli citizen from governing the country.

For me, this is not theoretical. I am Israeli-American, and my work in biotechnology takes me around the world. I meet Jewish communities in Australia and New Zealand, across Europe and throughout North America.

I hear what they and their children confront. Young Jews are being asked to defend not simply Israeli government policy but the legitimacy of Zionism itself.

I am also an elected member of the American Zionist Movement and participated in the most recent World Zionist Congress.

Israeli politicians need to understand that what they say in Jerusalem does not stay in Jerusalem. When they appear to say that Arabs are unacceptable as participants in government, Israel’s enemies quote them, and Jewish communities are left to explain them.

The propagandists say: Look, we told you what Zionism really means.

This is why the message matters now.

Israel is deciding more than who will occupy seats in the next government. It is deciding whether the Jewish state, after the worst attack on Jews since its founding and the years of war that followed, will retreat from the principles proclaimed at its birth or have the confidence to defend them.

Nearly eight decades ago, Ben-Gurion proclaimed a Jewish state that guaranteed equal political rights to all its citizens. Israeli politicians who exclude citizens from the government simply because they are Arab are not defending Zionism.

They are betraying the words of Ben-Gurion and the Declaration of Independence he proclaimed.

Stop giving Israel’s enemies the weapon they want. Put qualified Israelis who accept the responsibility to defend the Jewish state into positions of authority, regardless of whether they are Jewish, Arab, Druze, or Christian.

No citizen who is committed to Israel and qualified to serve it should be excluded from government because of ethnicity or religion. Let such Israelis sit together in the cabinet and share responsibility for the country’s security and its future.

Then, when propagandists tell the world that Zionism is racism and Israel an apartheid state, we will have something more powerful than an argument. We can point to the government of Israel and say, “There is your answer.”

The writer is an Israeli-American physician-scientist and biotechnology executive, an elected member of the American Zionist Movement, and a participant in the most recent World Zionist Congress. He is a former CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and former chairman of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.