12 | APRIL 8 • 2021
PURELY COMMENTARY
Talk of defectors from other
parties is, as was the case last
year, mooted by his supporters,
but that seems even less likely
this time around. Another
possibility of a solution is both
a laudable development as well
as a potential case of staggering
hypocrisy.
When the four disparate
Arab factions ran together as a
single party last year, they won
15 seats as the Joint Arab List.
When Blue and White leader
Benny Gantz spoke of his will-
ingness to deal with that coa-
lition of anti-Zionists — many
of whom sympathize with ter-
rorists — the Likud and others
blasted the idea as something
that would compromise the
nation’s security.
The Joint List split when
Mansour Abbas, leader of the
Ra’am Party that advocates
the conversion of Israel into
an Islamist Palestinian state,
pointed out something that
was quite true. Israeli Arabs
have been badly served by their
politicians. Many of them are
corrupt and have spent their
time working harder to support
Palestinian efforts to under-
mine Israel than on trying to
assist their constituents. Abbas
(no relation to the Palestinian
Authority leader Mahmoud
Abbas) suggested that it was
time for them to stop grand-
standing in order to help
allies in Ramallah and Gaza,
and start doing deals with the
Zionist parties in order to serve
their people better.
As he promised during the
campaign, however, Abbas says
that he is open to supporting
either side of the Israeli politi-
cal divide in order to advance
the interests of Israeli Arabs.
That opens up the possibility
that one of the non-Jewish
parties would become part of
a government, even if it meant
supporting it from outside the
coalition.
If Ra’am enables Netanyahu
and the Likud to govern in this
fashion, the prime minister and
his supporters would be open
to charges of staggering hypoc-
risy. Then again, it would also
give the lie to the canard that
Israel is an “apartheid state.”
It would also illustrate just
how far the Abraham Accords
and the other normalization
deals between Israel, and
Arab and Muslim states, have
helped erode support for the
century-long war on Zionism.
Friendly relations with the
United Arab Emirates and
Bahrain are a signal to Arab
voters that it’s in their interests
to stop acting like auxiliaries of
Palestinian terror groups.
This scenario may not hap-
pen — not the least because
many of Netanyahu’s support-
ers won’t tolerate sitting in a
government whose existence
depends on the votes of those
who don’t really want it to
exist. It also doesn’t alter the
fact that half of the country
will never rest until he is finally
defeated. Nor does it erase the
way the prime minister’s sense
of indispensability and dou-
ble-dealing has fatally divided
an Israeli right that might
otherwise be firmly in control
under almost any other leader.
The mere fact that the
option of a deal with an Arab
party can be realistically dis-
cussed is also a tribute to how
much Netanyahu has changed
Israel and the Middle East.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief
of JNS—Jewish News Syndicate.
Follow him on Twitter at:
@jonathans_tobin.
and live a Jewish life in Detroit
or b) move to an urban area
that already has such infra-
structure.
THE GOAL
The goal isn’t to mess around
in the city and then get serious
in Huntington Woods or West
Bloomfield; many of us don’t
see our futures in any suburbs,
anywhere. The goal is to build
a thriving Jewish community
with a shul, school, access to
kosher shopping and kosher
dining, and more, in Detroit.
Many people still seem to
think that the only Jewish peo-
ple living in Detroit are hipsters
or have no interest in being
members of a Jewish communi-
ty; hopefully, this demonstrates
that that’s not true.
Today, there are multiple
organizations that exist in
Detroit that are constantly
enriching Jewish life: Chabad
of Greater Downtown Detroit,
Hillel of Metro Detroit and
the Downtown Synagogue.
While each of these entities
provide wonderful Jewish pro-
gramming, that’s often where
it ends: programming. The
Downtown Synagogue is a
wonderful place, and I’ve spent
dozens of Shabbat mornings
there, but in all my pre-pan-
demic discussions, the intent
was to create a community
that fell somewhere along the
lines of Modern Orthodox or
Orthodox.
As Detroit continues to
attract new businesses, new
developments and new invest-
ments, we’re continuing to lose
scores of young Jewish pro-
fessionals to urban areas with
large Jewish communities, like
New York, Toronto, Chicago,
LA and Miami, to name just
a few. There’s really no reason
why Detroit can’t compete
with these cities.
Over the course of the pan-
demic, I’ve grown my network
to include other Jewish profes-
sionals in Detroit, including
a number of people in the
real estate development world
who share the same interest in
the creation and growth of a
Jewish community in Detroit.
Prior to writing this arti-
cle, the idea was that a Field
of Dreams approach might
work: “If you build it, they will
come.” As it turns out, there
are companies and individuals
who would work hard to build
it when that demand presents
itself — I’m hoping to find
through this article who will
come.
Jeremy Rosenberg lives in Detroit,
working in transit and real estate
development. He invites people to
reach out to him at jeremy_324@
hotmail.com.
NETANYAHU continued from page 8
“THIS FOURTH CONSECUTIVE
ELECTION STALEMATE IN TWO
YEARS IS A DISCOURAGING OUT-
COME FOR THE JEWISH STATE.”
— JONATHAN S. TOBIN
A VISION continued from page 4