“In every Cabinet where the prime minister is a Jew, the vice-premiership shall be offered to an Arab, and vice-versa.” This vision for Israel was articulated in 1934 by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the ideological father of Israel’s right wing. Today, 86 years later, Jabotinsky’s dream has never been closer to becoming reality, thanks to the potential inclusion of the Joint List in the governing coalition that Blue and White’s head Benny Ganz has been charged with forming by Israel’s President Rueven Rivlin.
Unfortunately, instead of celebrating this historical achievement and the potential fulfillment of a heretofore Zionist dream, the Zionist Organization of American (ZOA) released a statement yesterday condemning the Blue and White Party as well as Israel Beiteinu for agreeing to join a government that includes the Joint List and having “subverted the democratic will of the Israeli people, and is endangering the well-being of the entire Jewish state and people.” This is the height of chutzpah from the ZOA, an organization that has consistently opposed Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which declared that Israel will “foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace…it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.”
Ameinu welcomes the leadership exhibited by Benny Ganz along with his other potential coalition partners, Labor-Meretz. Palestinian citizens of Israel represent over 20% of the country’s population; it is promising to see their political representatives playing a central role in the formation of the next government. In this time of global crisis, may this be a harbinger of better days to come for all.
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About Ameinu:
Ameinu, the leading progressive Zionist membership organization in the United States, is dedicated to promoting a negotiated peace between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states, and to social and economic justice for all in Israel and America.
Ameinu reinforces Jewish continuity through support for Habonim Dror, the Labor Zionist youth movement, and management of the Kibbutz Program Center which sends hundreds of young adults on unique Israel experiential journeys every year.
