Is everyone aligning with Netanyahu to destroy democracy? Where have we come to and where are we racing?

By: Tamim Abu Khait

A year ago, Israeli settlers threw stones at four young Arab women from Rahat and set their car on fire, after they mistakenly entered a settlement near Nablus.

Yesterday, the court acquitted the only settler accused of attacking the girls from Rahat and setting their car on fire after they mistakenly entered the settlement. This court decision adds to the many other decisions in which the law of an Arab citizen differs from the law of a Jewish citizen, especially when it comes to a settler. And this time it is not a settler facing a citizen from the occupied territories but a citizen of the State of Israel. Yes, don't panic: apparently there is a difference!

For many months, the settlers' attacks on their Arab neighbors, who stole their land and uprooted their olive groves, have intensified, and it wasn't enough for them. They are killing civilians and burning houses without accountability, without any arrests, and even without any invitations for questioning. There is a chance that some of the media will mention it for two seconds and that's it, and there is a chance that they won't.

And it's not just about the territories and the settlers. The Israeli police (and I don't say the Ben Gvir police as others say) demolished dozens of homes in the Negev and left their residents out in the open without any humanitarian solution – without a roof over their heads and without basic infrastructure that could absorb them. No one cried out or acted – not the public, which is coming out in droves to defend democracy and morality, nor the media, which instead of being the fourth authority, has given up the title and replaced it with silence, disregard, and betrayal of the credibility and mission of the profession.

Why not? After all, it has become the norm: the entire government betrays the credibility of the mission. Even the opposition elected in the Knesset also betrays the credibility of the mission.

There is no one to comfort the girls from Rahat, just as there was no one to comfort 5 million people in the West Bank and Gaza for their continued occupation and oppression for 58 years. Not the people who felt the need to protect democracy and peace.