Tel-Aviv-Jaffa’s pluralist fortress is beginning to fall

Arab and Jews protest the Jerusalem Flag March in Jaffa, 18 May 2023

Odeh Bisharat writes in Haaretz on 22 April 2024:

Ron Huldai, the mayor of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, has enlisted to his city council coalition Chaim Goren, a “religious Zionist.” But the story does not end there: It never would have happened without the support of three Meretz council members. The move will have devastating consequences, not only for Tel Aviv residents but for all of us.

First of all, let’s be clear that the participation of a party that believes in Jewish supremacy will harm the city’s liberal and cosmopolitan image. It is like getting punched in the face: Your nose bleeds, your vision goes blurry and your head spins. Sure, the name “Tel Aviv-Jaffa” remains, but the spirit has left the city.

Astonishingly, the fascist virus did not conquer the city by force, as foreign invaders do, nor did it sneak in like a thief. The main gate was opened wide for the racists to enter. Esther Hayut, the former president of the Supreme Court, once said “the fortress did not fall.” She was referring to the court itself, and she was 100 percent correct that the fortress did not fall – it had been quietly occupied years before the judicial coup attempt. And so it is now with Tel Aviv.

I remember a May 2021 radio interview with Huldai in which he attacked the garinim hatorani’im (groups of Orthodox Jews who move into Arab neighborhoods in mixed Jewish-Arab cities), saying that Tel Aviv had a large Jewish majority. Were these groups coming to convince Jews to be Jews? He also came to the defense of the city’s Arab residents at a time when incitement against them was soaring. What will the mayor say to the Jews and Arabs now? The defilement spread without anyone noticing.

Then a truly painful blow was administered when Meretz added a tragic touch to the collapse of the city and the Jewish-Arab partnership. It appeals to the Arabs as partners, but in practice maintains a partnership with a racist party that sees the Arabs as inferior and ideally gotten rid of. Who are we to believe, the Meretz that talks of partnership, or the Meretz that allies with Arab-haters?

Why do I call it a blow? Because there are Arabs who tell us that yes, Meretz’s stated values of brotherhood, peace and equality inspire us, but in the end they and everyone else – the left, the right, liberals and fascists – rally around the exclusionary flag of nationalism. You can understand, even if with difficulty, that people unite when a disaster threatens everyone, but in this instance they are uniting as a voluntary act to generously give the fascists a share in power. It is sad: The message to the Arabs is that in a time of trial, we will abandon you.

This is a long-standing tradition of the Zionist left. In 1948, the Mapam party, Meretz’s spiritual mother, spoke of the “brotherhood of nations” and was distraught by the mass expulsion of the Arabs. But it did almost nothing about it, and when the time came to distribute the spoils, she was the first in line. The huge assets of the kibbutzim tell the whole story.

Meretz is seen by much of the Arab public as a movement it can have a dialogue with, that even if it is Zionist, its Zionism is different, a Zionism they can live with. Today, that faith is being destroyed, not just regarding Meretz itself but regarding Jewish-Arab movements in general. The Arabs will tell those of us who believe in partnership that we are naïve and when the moment of truth arrives, they will abandon us.

Meretz’s self-defeating act in Tel Aviv is sad, but in no way will it make me and a lot of good people “disillusioned” and opt for isolation and hatred of the other. We are not a leaf that floats with the wind, we are an olive tree planted deep in the ground. That applies alike to the Arabs and Jews who have long journeyed together. It is important to look at the stain for what it is and say out loud: Not in our name.

This article is reproduced in its entirety