Since Israel was established and its legislature — the Knesset — first convened, Palestinian lawmakers have served alongside Jewish ones. They’ve included poets, playwrights, philosophers, doctors, lawyers, educators and feminist activists. Be they communists, liberals, nationalists, or Islamists — every Arab parliamentarian steps up to the podium with pain, frustration, anger, and hope (otherwise they wouldn’t be there). Yet, regardless of tone or tenor (provocative, poignant, polarizing, or pacifying), most of their words fall on deaf ears. Were we to listen to a collection of 3-minute speeches by these parliamentarians, what would we hear? A hungry appeal for a rightful place at the civic table, rather than the carrot, the stick, and civil rights crumbs begrudgingly swept off of it.
