Published: 16 December 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
ALON LIEL explains why the party he helped create during this past year is so necessary: alone in the political landscape, it aims to consolidate Israel as a society for all its citizens.
It feels like the sky fell upon us recently here in Israel. The racist-nationalistic-messianic wave that flooded our country has left many of us, loyal citizens guilty of nothing but protesting against corruption and standing up for the human rights of our Palestinian neighbours, feeling isolated and even threatened.
The election results in Israel have created a new political reality in which liberal Israeli Jews who have a pluralistic outlook have become a disadvantaged and imperiled minority.
I would like to spell out three of the primary changes that already occurred during, and as a result of, our recent elections:
First, the Jewish-Arab rift has sharpened to an unprecedented level. Jews voted for Jews and Arabs for Arabs. Further, despite Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am party having been a member of the 36th government, the 10 members of Knesset (MKs) from the two Arab parties that managed to pass the election threshold are not even being considered as potential coalition partners.
The election results in Israel have created a new political reality in which liberal Israeli Jews who have a pluralistic outlook have become a disadvantaged and imperiled minority.
Second, the authentic Jewish left, represented only by Meretz, did not pass the threshold and suffered a mortal parliamentary blow, at least in its current format. At this time, it does not look like Meretz will be able to recover.
Third, civil society human rights organisations have been officially marked as “enemies of the state” by at least some of those tagged for ministerial positions and by a growing number of MKs.
Some of these organisations were openly named in a recent meeting at the Knesset: The New Israel Fund, Peace Now, Ir Amim, and Breaking the Silence. My personal association with all four of them makes me an enemy of the State of Israel four times over.
And I have not yet even begun to address the anticipated changes in every possible sphere of life after the new coalition is formed. We can easily detect some of the dramatic upheavals that are coming our way in the coalition agreements that have already been signed, with issues such as the authority over settlement construction, the Border Police, budgetary allocations, and matters of Jewish identity having been placed in the hands of the far-Right.
If we are to sustain our ideological survival, things have to happen immediately. Looking across the spectrum of Israeli society and the entire Jewish world, I see two important partners who can help position the liberal, pro-peace, anti-occupation minority to be more influential in the forthcoming struggle inside our homeland.
The first among our potential allies is the Arab society in Israel. In this sphere, things are already underway. A group of Jewish and Arab activists recently registered a new joint Jewish-Arab, Arab-Jewish party called Kol Ezrahe’ah-Kul Muhataniye, which translates into All Its Citizens, a phrase taken from Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
Among the party's leaders are former Knesset Speaker Avram Burg, Dr Janan Faraj Falah, Professor Faisal Azaiza, Dr Rabiaa Basis, columnist Gershon Baskin, and many others.
The party’s main message is one of equality, and its composition is based on equal Jewish-Arab and equal gender representation. Among its leaders are former Knesset Speaker Avram Burg, Dr Janan Faraj Falah, Professor Faisal Azaiza, Dr Rabiaa Basis, columnist Gershon Baskin, and many others.
Currently, the entire Israeli political system is organised around the national identities of Jews and Arabs. True, both Hadash and Meretz tried to present themselves as joint parties, but in fact Hadash is an Arab party with a Jewish fig leaf and the reverse can be said of Meretz.
Kol Ezrahe’ah offers a ground- breaking alternative to this reality. We propose a substantial and meaningful political partnership between Jews and Arabs built on a civil, constitutional, and egalitarian
foundation, reflecting full partnership between members of the two primary national communities of Israel. The new party aims to consolidate Israel as a society for all its citizens and communities and to serve as a bridge between Jews and Palestinians.
The main goals of this new party are:
To end the occupation and conclude a political settlement between Israel and Palestine based on the principle that every person and national community between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea deserves equal rights.
To acknowledge the historical national trauma of the other based on empathy, sensitivity, and parity of esteem and to heal and correct the injustices of the past to the extent possible without creating new ones.
To draft a civil constitution and legislate a set of laws based on democracy for all in order to ensure complete equality for all women and men irrespective of the differences between them.
To secularise and enable diversity within the Israeli public spaces based on mutual respect and the freedom of all individuals and communities to express their beliefs or identity as they choose.
Since its founding in May 2022, and after the death blow dealt to the Left in the last election, Kol Ezrahe’ah has found itself at the vanguard of the movement to unite Jewish and Arab progressives in a new political framework that challenges the nationalist divisions that have hindered efforts to establish true and comprehensive equality in the State of Israel since its inception.
The broader liberal Jewish world also supports these efforts. The recent surge of racism in Israel has sparked great anxiety among diaspora Jewry with regard to both their own well-being as well as their ability to continue to identify with the State of Israel.
We look to diaspora Jewry as an important ally in our struggle to reverse the dangerous trajectory on which the incoming government has embarked. The response so far, especially from American Jews, has been a great source of hope for many of us here in Israel.
As an Israeli who believes in the need for a sovereign state for the Jewish people, I am devastated by the mood of Jewish supremacy that is emerging in Israel.
J Street, the liberal Jewish advocacy group founded in the United States in 2007, has taken the Lead in raising the alarm about the dangerous trends emerging in Israel. Secretary of State Blinken’s recent appearance at the annual J Street conference is an indication that the administration is listening.
The rest of the Jewish world also needs to be part of this effort to save Israel from the fundamentalist and anti-democratic path it is taking.
One example of world Jewry joining together to support the pro-peace forces in Israel is that of J-Link, an umbrella body under which progressive Jewish organisations from around the world work hand-in-hand to lobby their local communities, national governments, and international bodies to ensure that Israel upholds human rights and to help secure a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As an Israeli who grew up here and strongly believes in the need for a sovereign state for the Jewish people and who has no intention of leaving, I am devastated by the mood and spirit of Jewish supremacy that is emerging in Israel. I do not believe that it is sustainable in the long term, but I realise that the Jewish left in Israel is too weak to turn things around on its own in the foreseeable future.
Therefore, I call upon the Arab citizens of Israel and Israel-loving diaspora Jews to respond to our call for cooperation in order to make Israel a better and safer place for future generations.
Photo: Palestinians and Israelis discuss peace-building in Jerusalem in 2013 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
