This Muslim Israeli Woman Is the Future of the Middle East
Lucy Aharish is one of the most prominent television broadcasters in Israel—and the very first Arab Muslim news presenter on mainstream Hebrew-language Israeli television. Born and raised in a small Jewish town in Israel’s Negev desert, as one of the only Arab Muslim families, she has a unique lens through which to view the divisions in Israeli society, the complexity of the country’s national identity, and the Middle East more generally. Lucy has long been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is equally critical of her fellow Arab Israelis, particularly of Arab violence and the Arab leadership that she says condones it. A Muslim and a Zionist; an Arab and an Israeli. In short, Lucy Aharaish is an iconoclast. Bari Weiss sat down with Lucy in Tel Aviv. They talked about the October 7 massacre and its impact on the country and her family–her husband put on his uniform and headed to the south within hours of hearing the news, despite being past the age of an active reservist. She also talked about the challenges she faced growing up as the only Arab Muslim kid in a traditional Jewish village, the terrorist attack that she survived in Gaza as a child, and the hope that she has for her Muslim-Jewish son and the future of the country she calls home.
