October 7: An opportunity to foster kinship with Israel's non-Jews - opinion

I am ashamed of something that I did not do on October 7.

As the head of North America for The Jewish Agency for Israel, I am blessed to work with some extraordinary Israeli colleagues. Many of them are on “shlichut,” a two-or three-year stint living in the Diaspora. They are incredible colleagues and professionals who have put their lives on hold to move with their families across the world to build and deepen the connections that American Jews feel to Israel. The Jewish Agency has close to 400 of them in North America and I work closely with several serving in senior positions.

As the horror of October 7 set in, I called my senior team. I had nothing to say that provided comfort and they had nothing to say back as they watched helplessly from far away as the worst event in their country’s history took place. Every one of them knew someone impacted and every one of them knew immediately that their life would never be the same.

The next day, I realized I had forgotten to call one of my colleagues.

Her name is Gadeer Kamal Mreeh, and she is our first Druze senior emissary. She was the first Druze woman to be elected to the Knesset and the first non-Jewish woman to be a Hebrew broadcaster for a mainstream Israeli television station. She is on shlichut in Washington, DC, where she helps educate American leaders about Israel’s rich diversity.

I did call her on October 8, and her gratitude made me even more ashamed that I had not called her sooner. She expressed the same anguish as our Jewish colleagues that her country was under attack. She also knew victims who were directly impacted and, like the rest of us, she worried that her country would never be the same.

The contributions made by Israel's Druze community

Since that day, I have made myself more aware of the contributions made by Israel’s minorities, especially the Druze. Around 150,000 Druze live in Israel, where they represent 1.5% of all Israeli households. Eighty seven percent of eligible Druze serve in the IDF, a significantly higher number than Israel’s Jewish population. More than one military commander has told me that as a group, there are no braver or more dedicated soldiers than members of the Druze community.

In the days since October 7, the number of Druze soldiers killed in combat has far outweighed their small population. One such soldier was Lt.-Col. Salman Habaka, killed while commanding his tank unit in the northern part of Gaza City. Habaka had been one of the first soldiers to respond to the massacre in Kibbutz Be’eri. 

Stories of the heroism of the Druze citizens of Israel have become commonplace, but we must also remember Israel’s Arab citizens. Twenty-one Israeli Bedouin citizens were killed and seven kidnapped on October 7.

Something remarkable is happening among Israel’s Arab citizens that we must take a moment to absorb. Despite racist and xenophobic rhetoric from some Israeli leaders, a November poll from the Israel Democracy Institute found that the percentage of Arab citizens of Israel who feel kinship with the state has risen to 70% since October 7 compared to 48% when the survey was taken in June. This number is the highest it has been in decades.

A December poll from the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation showed that more than 80% of Israel’s Arabs support efforts by Arab citizens to help Jewish residents in the south and a majority favored Arab Israeli support for Israel’s public relations during the war. The same poll revealed that for the first time in the poll’s history, the percentage of Israeli Arabs who identified as Israeli (33%) was higher (albeit within the margin of error) than the number who identified as Palestinian (32%).

Let me offer two conclusions to draw from this data. First, the notion that Israel is an apartheid state engaged in acts of genocide that is so common on college campuses and other progressive environments, is not shared by the very population that should know best and deserves some level of deference and respect. Israeli Arabs do indeed face bigotry and discrimination, but they have observed and felt everything going on around them and many have drawn a very different conclusion than those watching the conflict from the comfort of their own homes.

October 7 was the darkest day in Israel’s history, but it was a clarifying one. There is an opportunity here for both Israelis and American Jews to show deeper camaraderie and kinship with Israel’s non-Jewish citizens. This opportunity will not exist forever, and it would behoove all of us to take steps to meet it.

Last week, I attended an event with Gadeer. We stood next to each other and sang Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem, longingly expressing a desire for a Jewish home. A strong, secure, and prosperous Jewish home can also be a home for all its citizens. We must all do our part to make it so.

The writer is head of North America at the Jewish Agency for Israel and the president and CEO of Jewish Agency International Development.