Israeli Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran has the right not to sing the national anthem, "Hatikva." The law doesn't oblige him to do so, and the song's lyrics don't enable him to do so. As a loyal citizen of his country, the justice did not want to betray his conscience during the new Supreme Court president's inauguration by singing a song whose words are alien to every Arab citizen of Israel. An Arab citizen cannot sing "a Jewish soul yearns" or "the hope of 2,000 years," words that ignore the existence of an Arab minority in the State of Israel - a minority for whom this land is also their land.
The uproar that erupted following Joubran's refusal damaged the delicate fabric of Israeli democracy far more than his silence did. But against the background of the chorus of denunciations from the right, the position taken by Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin and Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon, both of whom came to Joubran's defense, was particularly noteworthy. They deserve high praise for this because even though Hatikva was written as an expression of the national sentiments of the Jewish people and Israel is a Jewish homeland, Arabs are just as much a part of Israel as the Jews.
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