Gabe Ende – And Again: the Druze and the “Nationality Law”
Thank You to Mark Okrent for the approved Translation from the original Hebrew
- I unequivocally advocate postponing dealing with political issues until “after the war”. The nightmare of renewing the “Jewish Wars” during the actual days of the battles depresses me… However…
2. Since everyone—politicians, the media, and anyone with a microphone nearby—has an opinion on the Nations Law in terms of the Druze community’s losses in the fighting, I will permit myself to contribute a few of my own words to the discussion. It is important first of all to listen to what the Druze say. The spokesmen of the community scornfully reject a specific compensation for themselves. As people with a moral civic consciousness, they demand the repeal of the discriminatory law or addition that guarantees equality for all citizens of the country.
Why didn’t we listen to them when they said this previously? Because such a statement stands in clear contradiction to a central political norm that has taken root among us. Is there a problem with the ultra-Orthodox? We will give them more money for Yeshivot. Angry party members? We allocate to them—Silman, Distal-Atbaryan, Amsalem, etc.— Ministries of Nothing, with all the extravagance of these positions. As the previous Miki Zohar (kudos on the change) solemnly declared: All a politician aspires to is money, respect, and power. In contradiction, the representatives of the Druze stand up and declare: We are not in this game– and we are not asking for a reward for ourselves, but only a correction for the benefit of Israeli society as a whole. Right-wing people immediately jump up in amazement: “What? To all the non-Jews in the country? To the entire Arab public???” And the Druze response: Of course. We all want to feel equal. We all want to feel welcome. We all want to feel Israeli. What’s so hard to understand?”
In a discussion on Channel 12, Amit Segal saw fit to defend the dubious law and declared: “We felt that the state was breaking apart from everything Jewish.”
What??? Even in the current “fake” age, such a false, delusional, perverse assertion has as yet not been heard.
This country is “Jewish” to the core. In Talmud Baba Batra, it is written “Tol Kore Bein Einecha” which is roughly translated as “clean your own house before you make accusations in mine”. The intoxication of the nationalistic government – and also the position papers of the Kohelet Forum, if I’m not mistaken – are the ones who pushed you into the half-baked legislation proposals, which gave birth to a very inappropriate basic law – and if we don’t cancel or amend it immediately after the war with the support of many people of the right, the vision of the Unity” may evaporate very quickly.
3. And if anything… it’s time to finally treat the members of the minorities as an asset and not a burden. There are, of course, circles within them that regard the state with mixed feelings and even with open hostility—but the war has proven (and the polls confirm) that a large majority strives for meaningful integration and many are already making a priceless contribution to the economy and society. So it’s really crazy to reject them instead of being close to them. What happened to all the wisdom and morality we attribute to ourselves?
4. ..and another point that cannot be suppressed: the Hilltop Youth—the Cossacks of Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and Yossi Dagan—use the war to harm in various ways to the point of murdering small “shepherd communities” in order to force them to evacuate their settlements/encampments. These are not hostile or violent groups or “imminent invaders” but peaceful and defenseless concentrations that our fascist thugs have decided to abuse and harass simply… because they can. I not only propose to put an end to this repulsion on ethical grounds. Be aware: the whole world is watching what is happening—including President Biden and his assistants. They repeatedly turn to Bibi to put an end to the atrocities and he waves them off, as is his custom in the ritual. But “the ledger is open and the hand is writing” — so much so that it is not impossible that the US will actively support a proposal for a serious resolution on the subject in the Security Council. So before this happens and we scream as if with clean hands “anti-Semites, hypocrites, haters of Israel”, the government should act to administer a remedy prior to the penalty, because there is no doubt that the penalty will be very painful…
