Changing the Reality

written by: Jawad Farah

The solution is known to all of us. This is not a new invention or discovery. The right rules because the left is silent! The left in Israel must express itself and make its voice heard at the ballot box—not in Kaplan, not at intersections, not in the media, and not at conferences.

The right wins because voter turnout among the religious-nationalist public is dozens of percentage points higher than among the moderate secular public. Among the settlers, turnout reached 100%, while among the Arab public, it was only 42%.

The left and the Arabs, in their overwhelming apathy, abandoned their fate and allowed a group of fanatics—some driven by messianic beliefs, hearing divine commandments to fulfill the will of God—to take control. The so-called "normal" right behaves like a herd following a leader who acts like a raging bull, has forfeited its intellectual independence, and become captive to the whims and desires of a leader charged with crimes and entangled in scandals.

The end of this madness: a blood-soaked war, war crimes that will forever mark the forehead of the state with shame, damage to Israel's image in the world, a rise in antisemitism, a tear in the social fabric within the country, a rift with the Arab and Muslim public that may never be healed, a historically massive economic disaster, severe harm to the justice system and the democratic character of the state, and an internal war against the Arab public, who is already collapsing under unrestrained crime—and this is just the beginning.

But make no mistake—this is the direct result of our criminal indifference, of both the Arab public and the moderate Jewish public who chose not to vote, who chose on the decisive day to nullify themselves. Democracy is the rule of the majority that voted. Whoever chooses not to participate in the democratic game has no right to complain about the anti-democratic actions taken by the government.

In my eyes, what is called the "judicial reform," which seeks to subjugate the courts and gatekeepers to politicians and harm their independence, is no more anti-democratic than the abstention of significant parts of the public from voting. This imbalance creates a distortion that cannot be accepted. In my view, democracy is the freedom to choose—not the freedom not to choose. If you don’t say so, you have no democracy.

What more needs to happen for us to understand that we must not sit on the fence and allow the extreme right to drive us off a cliff? In a reality where the choice is between "to be" and "not to be," we do not have the privilege of not choosing.

As those who have taken upon themselves the public struggle for peace and democracy, the most important goal we must place before our eyes is to increase voter turnout among the Arab public and the moderate Jewish public. These communities must be called upon to show up at the ballot box on election day and vote—because every vote is a winning statement: "No to war," "No to occupation," "Yes to peace," "Yes to democracy," "Yes to sanity."

This is the only democratic way to bring down the right-wing government. This is the only salvation available to us. That is where our efforts must be directed.

written by: Jawad Farah