After being ranked 17th on the Labor Party’s slate, media personality Zuhair Bahloul’s life hasn’t been a stroll in the park. When his new party teamed up with Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua in December, he suddenly found himself a member of a united group labeling itself the “Zionist Camp,” of which Livni is co-chair. Yossi Sarid, the former chairman of the Meretz movement and current Haaretz columnist, described in an article the dilemma of an Arab who decides to bolster the “Israeliness” of Israel’s Arab citizens, only to find himself taking flak from all sides. Referencing Israel's national anthem, he wrote, “His soul, how odd, isn’t that of a 'yearning Jew.' And as a native, his eye doesn’t gaze 'toward the east.' The dogs of the right rushed to lunge at him and attack him for his dual loyalty — not to say his treacherousness.”
Well before announcing that he was running in the elections on the Labor Party’s slate, Bahloul presented before the Israeli public the sense of dead-end helplessness felt by Arab Israelis in the face of a Zionist society. “Oh! How difficult my life is. I’ve had enough. I’m really fed up with being an Arab in the Holy Land,” he wrote in Haaretz. “Holy, my foot! This land is not real. To survive in it, I need to acquire more and more skills — juggling and acrobatics, for example. Without those arts, who can dodge so many bullets, all of which amount to suspicions and accusations?”
Bahloul has enjoyed an illustrious career as a venerated sportscaster on the Israel Broadcasting Authority. Equipped with polished Hebrew, enthusiasm and professional knowledge, he drew many sports fans that saw him as integral to Israeli sports and a valuable asset to Israeli sportscasting. For the first time ever, following his transition to politics, strident voices have been raised against him from the Israeli right, questioning his loyalty to the state.
Bahloul managed to overcome his biggest hurdle to date when the Zionist Camp retracted its decision to vote in favor of disqualifying Knesset member Haneen Zoabi from serving in the next Knesset. Meanwhile, he was spared the dilemma that has been seriously troubling him in recent days and that has now become the dilemma of the Zionist Camp. In an interview with Al-Monitor, he says he feels very uneasy about this issue, yet at the same time he is resolved to serve as a bridge for Arab Israelis who want to feel part and parcel of Israeli society.
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