Marc Gopin

Life is not fair. For years the anti-Israel crowd, Owen Jones and his ilk, raged against the “liberal Zionists”, an oxymoron and anathema to them, insisting that we don’t exist. Now, in the aftermath of the Israeli election, the two Arab/Palestinian parties are deep in negotiations with those same nonexistent liberal Zionists, Golan, Eisenkot, Bennet, Lapid, toward a better future for all Israelis. Talks are firmly anchored in the negotiating parties’ decisive Knesset majority. If accomplished, I’d say that the new Jewish-Arab coalition not a bad day’s work. Especially for people who don’t exist. Left to right: Mansour Abbas and Yair Golan, yesterday.

Appeal to the President of Israel and the Leaders of the Political Parties 74 Signatories We, senior figures in the military and security establishment, veterans of the defense forces, academia, medicine, the judiciary, government ministries and the Israeli civil service, hereby appeal to the leaders of the political parties, the President of Israel, the elected members of the Knesset, and the Israeli public as a whole, demanding that the Arab citizens of Israel and their elected representatives in the Knesset not be excluded from any future government coalition. Our demand of the President-elect is clear and unequivocal: Entrust the task of forming a government to the member of Knesset who has the support of the greatest number of MKs. This is a well-established procedure, as has been done in the past, and not according to the size of the party that the candidate represents. The desire of the vast majority of Israel’s Arab citizens, as expressed in their voting patterns, to participate in the parliamentary process and to play a full and equal role in the affairs of the state, is of the utmost importance and must not be ignored. It is essential to the future of democracy and the fabric of Israeli society, as well as to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Signing an agreement on the basis of a common denominator, even a very limited one, and the actual participation of the Arab democratic parties in a coalition, constitutes a historic recognition of the Arab citizens and their tradition of political representation. It is also an essential foundation for agreements, policies, coalition principles, and ways of thinking that can help resolve disputes or act in cases of disagreement. Ignoring the views of 20% of the country’s citizens on the basis of nationality is racist, divisive, and undemocratic. The spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the Jewish moral values demand that the Arab citizens of Israel be regarded as an inseparable part of the State of Israel and treated accordingly.