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Matan Kahana is about to become Speaker of Israel's Knesset. Gadi Eisenkot's bloc picked him this week. This is what he has said about Arabs and Palestinians" 1) In June 2022 he was a deputy minister. He told high school students in Efrat (a settlement): "If there were a button you could press that would make all the Arabs here disappear... I would press that button." 2) In the same talk he called the Palestinian account of 1948 "nonsense." His apology was for an "unsuccessful choice of words." He never took back the wish. 3) A month before that, he wrote about a dream in which "all the Arabs decided one morning to emigrate to Switzerland." 4) In July 2021 he backed the law that bars Palestinian spouses of Israelis from citizenship. He said whoever votes against it "wants to flood Israel with thousands of Palestinians." 4) In December 2020 he wrote that "it is madness to legislate the equality law." 5) During the May 2021 unrest in Lod he wrote that the police should "protect the Jews from Arab rioters" instead of separating the sides. 6) In February 2021 he called the Arab MKs Heba Yazbak, Sami Abu Shehadeh and Mansour Abbas "supporters of terror" who have "no place in the Knesset." 7) In 2025, asked about the bid to expel MK Ayman Odeh, he said: "We must not build on Arab seats." On election night, October 28, 2026, he repeated that there would be no government that relies on Arab parties. 8) In September 2022 he said Ben-Gvir "loves the State of Israel." In the same breath he called the Arab party Balad "full-on terror supporters." 9) In February 2025 Trump proposed moving Gaza's population out. A radio host called it forced transfer. Kahana answered that it was "voluntary emigration" and said "we need to embrace this solution." 10) The day after, he called humanitarian aid to Gaza "aid to murderers." This is the man the bloc that ran against Netanyahu chose to preside over Israel's parliament, including over its Arab members. He is an unrepentant racist and will lead the Knesset despite that.

Israel likes to hold up its Arab doctors as proof that it is not an apartheid state. This week, Palestinian doctors in Israel told Ynet what the job is actually like. This is how Palestinian citizen doctors are treated according to Israel's own media: 1) It started with a video of Dr. Walid Salah, an internal medicine resident at Shamir (Assaf Harofeh). It spread online with comments like "Who let terrorists into the hospitals?" 20 A doctor at a Negev hospital said people there called him "Sinwar 2." It wasn't patients. It was hospital staff. A senior doctor called one of his Arab colleagues a "terrorist." "It's a horrible feeling. If someone says that about you, about a doctor, it's shocking. It can even hurt your career." He asked Ynet not to name him because he still works in the system. 3) The same doctor: "During the war I gave with all my heart, to every sector, and to soldiers." He has been at the hospital for years and still hasn't been given a residency. 4) Dr. Mohammad Mahamid, an internal medicine resident at Shamir: "Right now I don't feel safe going back to full duties at work. It started as a verbal attack, but it could become a physical one." He works in the ER: "We can't predict any reaction, especially when we're directly exposed to patients and families." 5) Mahamid said he heard about a patient's relative at another hospital who told the nurses he had already killed 400 people in Gaza. "Like, 'be careful.' An actual death threat." 6) A doctor at Clalit, who asked not to be named: "I'm already afraid to tell patients who I am. I don't know what racist lunatics I might run into." 7) Dr. Hussam Dayeb, a thoracic surgeon at Shamir, said things have gotten much worse over the past two years: "Someone put these ideas into people's heads." 8) Prof. Naim Abu Freih, chair of the Arab Doctors Association in the Negev, said the rise in racism comes from "clear racist statements, positions and policies by senior figures in the political system." Patients ask not to be treated by an Arab doctor "solely because of his origin." He also raised fears of discrimination in hiring, in residency placements and in promotion. 9) Abu Freih said many doctors won't file a complaint or give their name because they fear it will damage their standing at work. "No medical worker should be afraid to come to work because of his origin." 10) Dr. Murad Mafra'a of the Forum for Promoting Health in Arab Society said some doctors are afraid "even to speak Arabic at work or in public." Some feel "required to prove their loyalty and professionalism again and again, just because of their national identity." 11) Dr. Mansour al-Gergawi, 66, has been a doctor since 1986. As an intern at Soroka he was the only Bedouin. A senior doctor called every other intern to see patients but never him. In the operating room the same doctor taught the interns "as if I wasn't in the room." The other interns noticed and said nothing. 12) A patient from Dimona screamed at al-Gergawi, "I don't want an Arab to touch me." "None of my colleagues rebuked her. They were silent." He says many doctors still stay quiet "because they don't want to deal with the system." 13) The hospital's director answered with a line about coexistence. She said that when Jewish staff left for reserve duty after October 7, Arab doctors and nurses "filled their place." 14) Al-Gergawi said it plainly: "It's a disease. It was in the health system, of all places, that I ran into racism." Colleagues call these doctors terrorists. Patients' families threaten them. Some are blocked from residencies, some are afraid to speak Arabic, and most won't complain on the record. These are the doctors Israel points to as proof of equality. Do not be fooled. Palestinian citizen doctors are discriminated against, threatened, and abused on a daily basis. Israel is a racist state to its core.