“the main task in this atter must lie with us, the general public, and these ideas must be our strategic goals. This is our responsibility — the responsibility of the minority.”

We demand our democratic rights in Israel — and this is justified and important  – but we ourselves, as a society are far from being democratic. We do not conduct ourselves in a democratic manner — neither at home in relation to our children or our wives, nor at school at the level of the principal’s attitude to teachers, or the teacher’s attitude to the pupils, and not in prayer locations either. We demand the right to equality, but we ourselves are not an egalitarian society.We have a policy of discrimination towards women and towards any internal minority. We fight any racism towards us as Arabs – and rightly so – but in our own vicinity there is a considerable amount of racism of Muslims towards Christians or Druze, and vice versa, of a large clan towards a small clan, of urban Arabs towards rural Arabs or Bedouin. We cry out to heaven against Jewish racism towards us, we harp on the surveys that show how much the Jews do not like us, and we do not ask ourselves how much we hate the Jews

. The multi-channeled missed opportunity is not unavoidable. We have the ability to change — and better late than never. If this is not of prime importance for our leaders, it should be a priority for us, women and men of our people, opinion-makers and intellectuals. The truth is that Arab leaders are beginning to show interest. The Palestinian leadership has made large strides in this direction. In Israel, too, there is beginning to be a change in trajectory. But the main task in this matter must lie with us, the general public, and these ideas must be our strategic goals. This is our responsibility — the responsibility of the minority.