Nir baram speech in the big protest in Jerusalem against the new national billDecember 12, 2014

“For decades now the main streams in Israeli politics have promoted the sense of Jewish supremacy, blended with a profound awareness of victimhood that stems from persecutions of Jews and from the Holocaust. For decades the establishment has convinced everyone that the Jews are better, more moral, more special, and at the same time more wretched than any other ethnic group. These were hollow words of myths, fear and Kitsch. We need to shake off all these ethnic and mythic conceptions – the Jews here are people, no more and no less, and they’re living here with other people. And they’re no better and no worse, and not more moral than anyone else.

 

Palestinian citizens of Israel live with us in the State of Israel. In recent months we have witnessed an unprecedented campaign of incitement against them. We know they’re under attack, we know that they’re suffering from racism in all avenues of Israeli society, and we also know that the abominable Nation Bill will only exacerbate their situation. Not long ago an Arab mother from Jerusalem told me that she warns her little children not to speak Arabic on the bus. I ask you: Do we really have to live like this?”