THE DARK AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

By Galina Vromen

Illustration from the Municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo website.

Life as we have known it in Israel came to an end this past month.

It is not only that the Palestinian violence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip brought down the curtain on a dream of peace, which indeed it did.

But the week also marked the beginning of a confrontation far more lethal for the long-term future of Israel: a battle between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs.

At the heart of this conflict lies a basic misconception many Israelis have about the meaning of a democracy.

They believe, rightly, that democracy means rule of the majority. But intrinsic in a true democracy is also respect and protection of minorities.

This essential element of democracy has never fully penetrated Israeli consciousness and the consequences manifested themselves this week in the riots that spread throughout the Galilee, to the Tel Aviv suburbs of Jaffa and Bat Yam.

In my own residential neighborhood in the quiet middle-class suburb of Hod Hasharon, I took a walk a few hours before the end of Yom Kippur. I noticed that the local dental clinic had fresh graffiti on its window front: “Death to Arabs” it read.

The total Arab population of Hod Hasharon is 0.

Arabs work here as gardeners and maintenance people.

But kill them anyway, this scrawl said.

And the sign was written on Yom Kippur, the day when more than any other we should be thinking of how to reduce hate rather than intensify it.

Late that same night, on my way home at 12:30 from a night shift job in the southern part of Tel Aviv, I saw hundreds of young Israelis, waving flags and carrying planks of wood, marching as a mob toward Jaffa.

The first thought that came to my mind was: pogrom. The second thought was that this rabble did not look like Cossacks but rather remarkably like the Palestinian rabbles in the territories.

True, they were not throwing stones. But they were in the adrenaline rush going berserk, of allowing despair and hatred to rule the day.

It is the first time I have ever been truly afraid for the future of this country. Not for its physical existence but for its soul.

I cannot think of anything more dangerous for Israeli society than to turn violent against its Arab minority, a minority that has by and large sought to find a way to live with Jews even though the government has consistently allocated the Arab sector fewer national resources than are devoted to the Jewish sectors. They have remained largely law -abiding and constructive members of society, despite the fact that their culture is rarely acknowledged nationally.

Yes, there are Arab Israelis who hate Jews. Yes, it is true that some Arab Israelis have attacked Israeli police. But if Israelis continue to unleash pure hatred on Arab citizens who have every right to respect and protection, then there will be no point to fighting the Arab enemy from without.

We will no longer be a small democracy in the middle of a non-democratic Middle East. Instead we will have become our neighbors.

Galina Vromen is a journalist living in Tel Aviv.