Why didn't Netanyahu apologise to Arab-Israelis in Arabic?

Benjamin Netanyahu has apologised for making anti-Arab remarks in last year’s General Election, and encouraged Arab-Israelis to feel more a part of Israeli society. “Israel is strong because of our diversity and pluralism,” Netanyahu told his Twitter followers via a pre-recorded video clip, “not in spite of it. Over 20 per cent of Israel’s citizens are Arabs. And you have achieved incredible heights: Supreme Court justices, members of parliament, renowned authors, entrepreneurs, high tech business-owners, doctors, pharmacists. I am proud of the role Arabs play in Israel’s success. I want you to play an even greater role in it.”

Fine words, even if Netanyahu made the apology in English, and not Arabic. It was also made in Modern Hebrew, the semi-invented language that Arab-Israelis refuse to use. Mark Regev, Israel’s recently appointed ambassador to London, Netanyahu fan-boy and former arch spin doctor for the Israeli Defence Forces, was quick to tweet the link to his boss’s video.

Perhaps English was chosen by the prime minister’s office because this was not really an apology to Israel’s 1.6 million Arab citizens, but a message to an international audience. When Netanyahu made his racist remarks last year with just hours to go before the election he warned darkly that “Arab voters” were arriving at polling stations “in droves”. A White House adviser responded abruptly, saying, “We cannot simply pretend that these comments were never made.” The Obama aide was addressing a crowd of three thousand Americans at a J Street meeting (that’s a pro-Israel lobby group), so the admonition was clear.

President Barack Obama crystallised the response that weekend, when he revealed that he had warned Netanyahu privately against making similar statements; he also objected to the Likud Party campaigning on the total rejection of a Palestinian state. Speaking to the New York Times, Obama rebuked the Israeli leader: “We indicated that that kind of rhetoric was contrary to what is the best of Israel’s traditions, that although Israel was founded based on the historic Jewish homeland and the need to have a Jewish homeland, Israeli democracy has been premised on everybody in the country being treated equally and fairly… If that is lost, then I think that not only does it give ammunition to folks who don’t believe in a Jewish state, but it also, I think, starts to erode the meaning of democracy in the country.”

Arabic isn’t something Netanyahu really agrees with nor, it seems, is it a language that he can pronounce properly. So bad were the few words of Arabic that he actually used during the introduction to his message, that Ahmed Tibi of Ta’al accused him of saying “my goats,” rather than “my friends”. Whether this was deliberate or not is up to the reader to decide.

Despite repeated attempts to row back on his “droves” comment, Netanyahu not only won the election but also fuelled further racism in Israeli society. This is a country where a majority of people defy the warnings of their more sensible fellow citizens and are embracing anti-Arab racism at full tilt. Half of Jewish Israelis now favour the permanent transportation of all Israeli-Arabs out of the state; as one newspaper put it, they want to see “ethnic cleansing.” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin called the findings a “wake-up call for Israeli society.”

Last week, MK Haneen Zoabi visited London as part of a delegation of Palestinian, Muslim and Arab leaders. She is an Arab member of the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) and wants equality for all citizens in a new Palestine. She rejects the notion of Israel entirely, does not want it to exist and argued that it remains an innately supremacist project that will inevitably lead to an upper tier of Jewish citizens and a lower tier of everyone else. She distinguishes herself from figures like Netanyahu by advocating equality for all citizens in her one-state solution, Muslims and Jews alike, whereas the Likud leader and his party would prefer an under-class of non-Jews in a Jewish state.

At an evening event in Westminster during her recent trip, Zoabi addressed a large audience in parliament and received a standing ovation. She had missed a vote back in the Knesset, she told the assembled gathering of journalists, politicians, researchers and activists. That vote was to expel Arab Knesset members (MKs).

The notion that such an abject charlatan as Netanyahu could implore Arabs to take part in Israeli society having overseen attempts to force the expulsion of Arab MKs just one week earlier is typical of the man. He claims that he wants Arabs to take part in Israeli society, but that is most unlikely if they have no Arab MKs to represent them. Moreover, Netanyahu’s office is still holding on to 2.5 billion shekels that he had promised to use in order to strengthen Arab-Israeli civil society; it won’t release the cash until Arab officials agree to help with demolishing Palestinian homes.

Learning about Arab historians, poets and artists is forbidden in schools that Israel’s Arab citizens must attend, and Arab schools in the north of the country get half the funding of their Jewish counterparts. A hundred thousand Arabs live in towns in the Negev Desert in the south where electricity is not available. This is not something that Jewish neighbourhoods in one of the most developed economies in the region ever have to worry about.

The clique that rules Israel isn’t serious about having Arab citizens. Netanyahu can record as many online videos as he pleases but he and his cronies who dominate the country know that there is more political capital in expelling the Palestinians out of Israel altogether, or keeping them on the margins of society. Neither makes it worth the effort to translate any apology to them into their own language, Arabic.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.