Opinion | Israelis Must Resist the Fascist Plans to Thin Out Arabs in the Galilee

While you, my democratic Arab and Jewish brothers and sisters, were engaged in the battle to repulse the fascist wave, while you were trying to rouse public opinion against the wave of benighted legislation, while you were organizing petitions, rallies and protests, the beacon of democracy, liberalism and international brotherhood known as the leadership of the Kibbutz Movement was meeting with other groups to harvest a different sort of fruit: perhaps the theft of more land and a further “dilution” of the area’s Arabs.

These dignitaries won’t, heaven forbid, celebrate the fascists’ rise to power, but – and this is a devastating “but” – if Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Avi Maoz will help them “thin out” the Arabs, then welcome! They’ll lend a land to this fascist leadership, and if it tarries, they’ll give it a push.

On Tuesday, according to the Kibbutz Movement website, the Misgav Regional Council held a “meeting to formulate plans for working with the new government to strengthen settlement and security” in the central Galilee. It discussed how to dilute Galilee’s Arab population by bringing in a million Jews. And if a million don’t come, then with the new government’s help perhaps they’ll propose other means. While the benighted Avi Maoz is already in charge of your children’s education, they’re busy with the cursed “demographic balance.”

For the record, these are the attendees: Nir Meir, Kibbutz Movement secretary general; Shai Hajaj, chair of the Regional Council Center; Itzik Ashkenazi, the center’s CEO; Amit Yifrach, secretary general of the Moshavim Movement; Benzi Lieberman, chair of the Shiloh Policy Forum; Anat Roth, the forum’s director general; Danny Ivry, head of the Misgav Regional Council; Eyal Ben-Reuven, a member of the Galilee Security Forum. Please write them down in black letters.

The meeting’s title, “A public effort to save the Galilee,” leaves no room for doubt. The participants came to remind us that their war is over the land, and they don’t care how people live on it. The meeting’s motto was a comment by Hajaj: “I think the new government has created an opportunity.” In Tel Aviv and Nazareth, people are preparing to defend themselves against the fascist onslaught, but in Misgav, they are drooling over the opportunity.

The meeting took place in the Misgav Regional Council, which is near Sakhnin, Arabeh, Deir Hanna, Maghar and other Arab towns. But naturally, not a single Arab attended it. So what kind of future is the council’s chair, with help from the new government, dreaming up for his neighbors and even his own council’s residents?

Consequently, I urge my Arab brothers and sisters to demand some explanations from their bad neighbor, Ivry: “Do you mean us when you talk about the demographic balance? In this balance of yours, is one more Arab a disaster and one less Arab a blessing?” Tell him, “You’re not a neighbor, but a cursed enemy.”

I also appeal to my Jewish brothers and sisters in Misgav or elsewhere in Galilee. Please, tell Ivry, “Stop harassing our neighbors! We have no intention of pushing them out.” You might also remind him of the Arab proverb, saying, that “After living with a group of people for 40 days, you are one of them.” That’s especially true for people who have been your neighbors for decades. Tell him, “You’re an embarrassment to Arabs and to Jews. Above all, you’re an embarrassment when you plot against your/our neighbors.”

A final plea, to both Arabs and Jews in Galilee: Now is the time to banish the evil. Go to him together, protest outside his office, tell him he isn’t fit to lead. In this of all places, with its glorious nature, on the border between heaven and earth, there is no place for evil people. Ivry is the antithesis of the environment. Tell him that it is indeed time to “save the Galilee,” as the banner of the Kibbutz Movement website put it: to save the Galilee from people who foment racism and hatred of the other.