Several days before the centenary celebrations of the Balfour Declaration that recognized the Jewish people’s right to a national home, a ruckus erupted over the absence of the word “Zionism” from the platform of the leftist Meretz Party. Leaders of this small party twisted themselves into knots trying to grab the stick at both ends: to assuage the concerns of its Jewish voters who define themselves as members of the “Zionist left” and to appease its Arab minority members who cannot bring themselves to sing the lyrics of an anthem that describes “a Jewish soul yearning.” The intense focus on the alleged “denial of Zionism” by the tiny opposition party swept under the carpet the government’s persistent denial of the foundations of Zionism.
Needless to say, an abyss lies between the outrageous warning by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on election day in 2015 against the “Arabs flocking in droves to the ballot boxes" and the Declaration of Independence. That 1948 founding Zionist document clearly states that Israel “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.” Netanyahu’s refusal to include the word “equality” in the text of the Nationality law (emphasizing Israel’s Jewish character) that he is trying so hard to promote proves beyond a doubt that his apology to a group of Arab “dignitaries” — Israeli-Arab leaders hand-picked by Netanyahu’s associates for the occasion — over his despicable election-day ploy was in itself a reprehensible exercise in public relations.
