As heartbreaking, as costly in lives as the rocket war with Hamas has been, the outbreak of Israeli Arab-Jewish violence in mixed cities such as Lod, Ramle, Acre and Jerusalem is even more devastating to the soul of our people.
The riots struck at the mutual trust between Arab and Jewish communities and the willingness to build a joint society. The hurt arouses anger and fear and mutual recoil between the communities.
You can take charge and decide to not let the violent extremists win. You can transform this moment of collapse into a positive turning point for the State of Israel.
I do not blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the riots. No individual should be accountable for the outcome of 70 years of history and more. What is clear, however, is that during all the years of his prime ministership, the infrastructure of mutual interaction, the investment in bringing the two communities together in greater equality, and the cultural effort to deepen mutual understanding were neglected and rotting underneath.
The communal breakdown only makes clearer that the unprecedented unity government you started to build is not simply some anti-Bibi coalition. It represents the possibility of initiating a yearslong major effort focused on improving internal Israeli society – including all the financial investments, political commitment, devotion, and hard work needed. It opens the possibility of a decade of healing between Right and Left that will not necessarily solve the policy differences, but will take the toxicity out of trying to solve them by democratic means.
Education, health and infrastructure come to mind as equally important, neglected areas worthy of equal governmental focus.
In this case there is an unexpected ray of light. A movement and its leader – hitherto deemed to be extremist and even anti-Zionist, opposed to integration in the total society – has stepped forward. Mansour Abbas has courageously made a healing gesture when every rational and political pressure urged him to play to further polarization. Critically, Abbas’s condemnation of violent extremism included his own side, not just the other side.
By an act of statesmanship and highest national purpose, you should offer him inclusion inside the coalition to signal to the Arab community that in condemning violence and committing to build constructive relations, one is not being a freier. Rather, the gesture is recognized and evokes a will to new partnership, to improve life in Israel, and between the communities.
This will take Israel to a higher level than ever. This will separate the Right and Center from the temptation to define itself by appealing to anti-Arab emotion rather than representing principled political alternatives.
If you want to be even more statesmanlike and bold, approach the Joint List and offer it a similar participation based on similar requirements to disown extremism and bring together moderates in and between Arab and Jewish Israeli communities to begin the work of healing. This can begin the end of Israeli-Arabs placing the welfare of Palestinians ahead of their own many needs and requirements.
This might not work. However, grand, courageous acts of good, taken at political risk, can transform what seems a hopelessly long-frozen, permanent status quo. Case in point: Anwar Sadat’s courageous peace offer in 1978.
The better angels of our Israeli nature plead for a breakthrough. Do not regress into a Netanyahu-led right-bloc government that would continue to demonize the Left, exploit and inflame divisions between the communities, and miss every opportunity to positively respond to demonstrations of political openness and aisle-crossing for constructive purposes. A regressive coalition will encourage certain groups to continue to exploit one-sided advantages, which endangers all other groups.
Give us a better alternative. A grateful Israel will rise up morally, religiously and politically and open a new door to a better life and better society.
The writer is president of the J.J. Greenberg Institute for the Advancement of Jewish Life and senior scholar in residence at the Hadar Institute of New York and Jerusalem.