Thursday, February 17, 2022
Elder of Ziyon
Fureidis, February 17 - A prominent resident of this predominantly-Arab town in northern Israel runs his business, engages in local and national politics, maintains active civic involvement, and benefits from liberties and security unavailable to the vast majority of his ethnic peers in the region and beyond, a situation that has concealed from him, his family, and his community that in fact they suffer under the repressive boot of a tyrannical Jewish-supremacist segregationist racist colonialist fascist regime hell-bent on ethnically cleansing him and his ilk from the land.
Jamil Zoabi, 50, operates a construction-supply enterprise that he and his brothers established two decades ago, but that he now owns outright after having bought out his brothers' shares in 2010. The father of six and soon-to-be grandfather enjoys a comfortable lifestyle and participates in civic life as his time permits, focusing mostly on local municipal issues such as infrastructure, and advising a committee that works with the Ministry of Education to help maintain and enhance academic achievement in the coastal town of 13,000. The freedoms of assembly, the press, expression, and religion that Mr. Zoabi exercises - he attends mosque services regularly and has completed the Hajj, and has had letters critical of government policy published in mainstream Hebrew newspapers - only mask, however, the inescapable reality that Israel perpetrates Apartheid against him, depriving him and his family of the very freedoms and rights he so blithely enjoys.
"It's been a decent year, even accounting for COVID," Zoabi disclosed to a reporter who asked after his welfare. "Sales didn't shrink as anticipated, and I've been able to give my employees a raise. Our local council got a nice allocation from the government to fix up schools and a bunch of dangerous intersections, plus the planning of an overpass that will ease our town's access to the main highways. [Daughter] Noora just won a math competition at school, and she's going to compete nationally - maybe even represent Israel internationally." The man gushed with the enthusiasm of someone manifestly unaware that he has been expelled, despoiled, genocided and ethnically cleansed, according to numerous international NGO reports.
Zoabi acknowledged the ethnic tensions that make Arab-Jewish relations fraught. "You can't erase history," he explained. "Some Jews deny Arab suffering, and many Arabs refuse to acknowledge Jewish rights. But in the end we have to share this small parcel of land. There's no other way. It's not supposed to be easy. Nor can we expect to build paradise in a day," he chuckled, in apparent reference to the town name etymology.
