Lucy Aharish

Lucy Aharish (born 18 September 1981) is an Arab-Israeli news presenter, reporter, and television host.

Quotes

• "We have other things to get over besides the occupation and discrimination. We are fighters and don't give in. If you don't open the door for me, I will come in through the window, and if it is closed, down the chimney. We were too polite, but we learned Israeli chutzpah. It's easy to humiliate an Arab who kowtows, but when that person says 'Listen, pal, tone it down, don't talk to me like that,' you arrive at a dialogue."'
• "What's more important for me is the brand name Lucy Aharish. The Arab sector does not pay me a salary. My national identity is that of an Arab-Israeli. I identify with Palestinian suffering, but I am not part of it. I have a different suffering here: I am not getting the rights that accrue to me as a citizen of Israel – such as better mortgage terms – because I did not do army service."
• "One of the topics [on the show last week] was the murder of women in the Arab sector, what is referred to, unfortunately, [...] as 'honor killing' and has nothing to do with [anything worthy of] honor. The guest in the studio was a woman who had 20 years of experience working for the sake of those same women who die for no good reason, a woman whose everyday job was a holy work for the sake of thousands of Arab women who need a voice that will shout out and cry out their cries. After she had accused the government and the police and everyone of incompetence, I asked her, in a somewhat aggressive manner, as it were, '[...] Where are we in all of this? Where are we Arab women to teach and discipline our sons that a man has no right over a woman? [...]' During the commercial break, she got up and told me that I had to learn how to talk to Arabs because the tone that I adopted and the things that I said were said to gain approval from Jews. So I've come to tell you today that I haven't come for approval from you; that I haven't come for approval from anyone; and this is the message that I want you to digest very, very well. In my life I have been accused of many things: that I am the fifth column; that an Arab will always stay an Arab, no matter how liberal he may look; that I bring shame on my family for being in a relationship with a person outside my religion. I've received threats after asking Palestinian residents live on the show why they don't go out against Hamas men, who use them and bring them to their slaughter; I've been attacked on Yom ha-Shoah and Yom ha-Zikaron that the managers at Arutz 2 dared to put an Arab on a show such as that as the host on a day such as that; I've been told that I make Arab women stray off the path of proper behavior; and that I've forgotten where I come from being an 'Ashkenazified', 'Judaized' Arab. So they blamed and they talked—as if that, in itself, made them right.
• "Right now, in Halab, Syria – just an eight-hour drive from Tel Aviv – a genocide is taking place. You know what, let me be more accurate – it is a holocaust. Yes, a holocaust. Maybe we don't want to hear about it, or deal with it, that in the 21st century, in the age of social media, in a world where information can fit into the palm of your hand, in a world where you can see and hear the victims and their horror stories in real time, in this world we are standing doing nothing, while children are being slaughtered every single hour. Don't ask me who is right and who is wrong, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, because nobody knows and frankly, it doesn't matter. What matters is that it's happening right now in front our eyes, and nobody in France or in the U.K. or in Germany or in America is doing anything to stop it. Who is marching in the streets for the innocent men and women of Syria? Who is shouting for the children? No one. The UN is holding meetings of its security councils, and wiping away a tear when they see the image of a father holding the body of his little daughter. There is a word for this: hypocrisy! I'm an Arab, I'm a Muslim, I'm a citizen of the state of Israel, but I'm also a citizen of the world, and I'm ashamed! I'm ashamed as a human being that we chose leaders who are incapable of being articulate in their condemnation, and powerful in their actions. I'm ashamed that the Arab world is being taken hostage by terrorists and murderers, and that we are not doing anything. I'm ashamed that the peaceful majority of humanity is irrelevant once again. Do we need a reminder? Armenia, Bosnia, Darfur, Rwanda, World War Two? No, we don't. We remember it all too well. What we do need is to take heart from that which Albert Einstein had said: 'the world won't be destroyed by those who do evil, but rather by those who watch them without doing anything'".