The legitimacy of racism

By Ameer Makhoul

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Israel will stop at nothing in its campaign against its Arab population. The attacks on Arab parliamentarian Azmi Bishara are a case in point. Israel lives in a dream world, a world in which a fiasco such as the war on Lebanon can be hailed as a victory. Israel wants its Arab population to live in a big prison, with no connection whatsoever with the outside world. It wants the Arabs living within its borders to sing the praises of Israel's racist and imperialistic designs. But how can we?

The assault on Bishara, leader and founder of the National Democratic Assembly, is part of a bigger evil. A recent report by Israel's intelligence services, the Shin Bet, says that the Arabs of Israel are a "strategic threat". This wasn't even a classified report. It is there on public record, a thinly-disguised threat.

Israel has never accepted the fact that the Arabs are the original inhabitants of the land. For Israel, the very presence of the Arabs is an inconvenience, and the campaign against Azmi is only a part of a broad effort to remove Israel's demographic discomfort.

Shin Bet maintains that we, the Palestinians of 1948, have no rights in our own country. Our presence is apparently a menace to the state. So there is a bigger question of legitimacy here. If our presence is legitimate, then the state must change its ways. Conversely, if the state's policy is legitimate, then something must be done about us. What would that be? The bitter experience of Bishara doesn't bode well.

This week's Soapbox speaker is director of Ittijah, Union of Arab Community-Based Associations, Haifa.