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

