The New Yorker’s profile of Haim Saban, the Israeli-American billionaire, quotes Saban as saying that he wanted to buy the Los Angeles Times (and still does) because he “thought it was time that it turn from a pro-Palestinian paper into a balanced paper. During the period of the second intifada, Jews were being killed every day over there, and this paper was publishing images of a Palestinian woman sitting with her dead child, and, on the Israeli side, a destroyed house. I got sick of it.”
From the perspective of Saban, a major donor to the Democratic Party whose greatest concern is protecting Israel, the focus on the LA Times makes sense. Remember, it was the LA Times that published Neve Gordon’s important Op-Ed calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
And now today the LA Times publishes an interview with Israeli-Palestinian Knesset Member Ahmad Tibi, who says that Avigdor Lieberman is a racist, Palestinian citizens of Israel are systematically discriminated against, and that he doesn’t accept Israel as a Jewish state.
Americans need to be hearing voices like this. If Saban had his way and bought the LA Times, Tibi’s voice, calling for equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, would most likely be squashed.
Here’s an excerpt from the piece (the questions from reporter Edmund Sanders are in bold):
A recent poll found half of Israeli kids don’t think Arabs should serve in the Knesset. What does that say to you?
There is a continuous delegitimization campaign against us. We are described as betrayers. But I can’t betray something I’m not part of. I’m not part of the army. I’m not part of the Zionist ideology. I’m a victim of Zionism…. It’s inhumane to demand that we be loyal to Zionism or accept Israel as a Jewish state. I can’t accept a definition that strengthens the discrimination against non-Jews in Israel.
You don’t accept Israel as a Jewish state?
I want it to be a state of its own nationalities, and the Arab minority to be recognized as a national minority. Israel is, according to the law, defined as a Jewish and democratic state. But there is a contradiction between the two values. If you are democratic, you should believe in equality. But if you define the nation by a Jewish ethnicity, you are saying any Jewish person is superior to a non-Jewish person.
How you do define yourself?
I’m a Palestinian-Arab citizen of Israel. We are part of the Palestinian people but citizens of Israel.
You gave an impassioned speech in January, acknowledging the Jewish suffering in the Holocaust. It was praised by some as one of the best ever delivered in the Knesset. Were you surprised by the reaction? Did it have any lasting impact on relations?
There was overwhelming positive reaction, most importantly, from Jews and Arabs alike. I said, we as Arabs are listening to your historical suffering and pain. I have empathy. You were victims. Now we [Palestinians] are victims of the victims. I wanted them to try to understand our agony and suffering. Those who have suffered so much in the past should be the first to listen to the pain of a Palestinian woman in Gaza. Yet they are not.
