Israel’s war isn’t limited to battles across its borders. Under the guise of war, the Israeli government is also waging war against its own citizens: advancing legislation and policy that further suppresses the rights of citizens, particularly those of its Arab citizens.
While this isn’t a new phenomenon, the current war has led to an unprecedented situation where Arab citizens of Israel are under ongoing active and open attack by state institutions. This state of affairs, in which a national minority group is silenced, oppressed, and persecuted by the state, is bringing Israel’s democratic systems to the brink of collapse.
While Arab citizens are paying the immediate price, all Israeli citizens, especially those whose opinions and values differ from those of the government, will soon feel the same pain.
The protection of minority rights is one of democracy’s foundational principles, the one distinguishing between a healthy majority rule and a dangerous tyranny of the majority. The Arab citizens of Israel – descendants of those who remained within the Israeli borders after the founding of the state in 1948 – form a fifth of Israel’s citizenry and have for decades suffered discrimination in all areas of life.
But their reality has changed for the worse since the horrifying attacks of October 7. Since then, the regime has not only failed to protect their rights but actively assaulted, harassed, and silenced them. It is disturbingly easy to find recent examples.
An Arab pharmacist was arrested three weeks ago for wearing a ring with Arabic inscription after a customer complained it represented ISIS, an allegation that proved baseless in court. Several days prior, an Arab girl was suspended from school for saying in class that “there are also hungry children in Gaza who have no home.” That same week, the deputy mayor of one of Israel’s largest cities, Beersheba, assaulted an Arab gas station employee and threatened him with his weapon, an incident that went uninvestigated.
This collection of events points to a deeper development. The government has been exploiting the understandable rise in public fear and anxiety caused by the war to deepen discrimination and cement Jewish supremacy.
First months of the war
In the first months of the war, there was a wave of investigations and arrests of many Arab citizens for “likes” and other social media activity, most proving completely innocent but with the expected silencing effect. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right “Jewish Power” party, distributed over 100,000 firearms to private citizens since the war’s outbreak, many lacking training and experience, all the while issuing public statements stoking fear of Arab citizens.
Subsequently, the government cut budgets to Arab society development programs at three times the rate of other, across-the-board cuts to government ministries, and then, in the middle of the war, shut down the emergency assistance center for Arab society that was meant to serve the Arab citizens’ wartime needs.
Recently, the Education Committee passed for final approval in the Knesset a bill allowing the dismissal of teachers whose statements in class might be classified as “supporting terrorism,” which states that what qualifies as terrorism will be defined by political echelon rather than professional standards – despite the objections of professional bodies including the Justice Ministry.
These and other acts of oppression show that public systems that are supposed to serve all citizens and protect minority rights are instead advancing the government’s racist and undemocratic agenda. In the immediate term, Arab citizens are the ones paying the price, but we must not be mistaken – in the medium and long term, all Israeli citizens will be affected.
Protesters across the country are already feeling the price of police politicization. The flooding of weapons on the streets poses a threat to all. The law that allows dismissal of teachers can and will be used to persecute any teacher who expresses views that go against the government. The budget cuts will hurt financial growth as a whole and deepen the deterioration of Israel’s economy in addition to the horrendous economic impact of the war.
It is not too late to stop this destructive trend. Even today, there are still many gatekeepers fighting to stem the tide, but as long as the war continues and the public agenda is dictated by it, their power is significantly weakened.
It is crucial that the liberal public in Israel understands that an additional cost of the war – alongside the abandonment of hostages and evacuees, the crushing of the economy, and the killing of so many innocent people – is also the abandonment of the democratic mechanisms meant to protect us all.
Ending the war and ending the ever faster erosion of democratic processes could restore power to the gatekeepers to stop the destruction and begin to initiate healing and repair.
The writer is co-CEO of Sikkuy-Aufoq, an NGO promoting an equal and shared society for Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel.