With the municipal elections just around the corner, candidates have made sure to place campaign signs on every street corner. This is a true celebration of democracy, as the people get to make a real difference and shape their lives.
In Tel Aviv, some parties have decided to run on a joint ticket and some have placed their own separate candidate list on the ballot. The city is a source of pride for all Israelis as it truly demonstrates how people can live side by side with mutual respect while addressing the concerns of all groups.
You would expect Likud, which is Israel's governing party, to show a sense of responsibility and maturity in the municipal campaign. But its campaign has had a very worrisome message. It has recently put up billboards and campaign signs running the caption "It's us or them" alongside pictures of Arabs and African asylum seekers. Such slogans are a disgraceful provocation that undermines what Tel Aviv-Jaffa, often called "the first Hebrew city," is all about.
The slogan "It's us or them" seeks to have the electorate make a binary choice. While this is a legitimate tactic and it has been used before, it is problematic in this context because it includes photoshopped images of the Palestine Liberation Organization flag being projected on the Tel Aviv City Hall.
The campaign has cast the Left and the Arabs as groups that can erase the "blue and white from Tel Aviv," referring to the colors of Israel's national flag. They are trying to make anyone who is not part of the collective "us" a threat. The slogan "It's us or them" makes the other side come across as a dangerous and destructive force, it casts the asylum-seekers as a demographic threat and portrays the Arabs in Jaffa as a Palestinian enclave in Israel. The slogan has created a political firestorm, with some citizens taking it upon themselves to cover them because of their inciting content.
When such slogans are spread by candidates who have the backing of the ruling party in the Knesset, it is all the more worrisome. It is troubling to see the Tel Aviv deputy mayor from Likud bask in the support he gets from the national party all the while he lashes out against the Arab minority in the city.
Jaffa has been riddled with violence and south Tel Aviv has been overwhelmed by the influx of asylum seekers. But it is the government that has to address these issues and it is most likely trying to do so. The inciting billboards have not been critical of the government and therefore they serve no real purpose other than to foment hatred against minorities by means of incitement. The Likud leadership must distance itself from such dangerous messages.
Next week, Israeli schools will hold assemblies to mark the 23rd anniversary of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. He was gunned down after walking down the famous steps outside the Tel Aviv City Hall.
Today's children and teens weren't alive back then and they are not fully aware of his life and times. As we memorialize him, we must make an extra effort to teach the younger generations about the incitement that preceded his assassination and teach them how dangerous incitement can be. The real legacy from that tragic chapter in Israeli history is that incitement leads to murder.
