Whoever Does Not Plant Hope, Plants Departure...

When images are published from Kafr Kanna as if they depict a confrontation between militias, a heavy question creeps into every home in our community: Where are we heading? When four or five from this town or that are killed in a single day, from the far north to the Negev, and when a father and son are killed, and when a shop owner is forced to close his store because he can no longer pay the extortion under the name of "protection," thinking of migration becomes a comprehensible reaction, not an intellectual luxury. There are those who look at these scenes and simply say: This place is no longer safe.

Migration has transformed into a tangible reality in every Arab village and city. It is no longer a timid individual decision, but rather a topic of conversation in homes, cafes, and on social media. We are not faced with a fleeting whim or a romantic dream of a European or American life, but rather with a widespread phenomenon that has become like an epidemic reflecting a deadlocked security and political horizon.

The issue does not stop at income, jobs, and the standard of living. The exacerbation of systematic racial discrimination is the primary factor for migration.

But internal violence and the lack of a sense of security have become the strongest factors. Migration has been increasing exponentially in recent years with the rise in murder rates, while the rates of solving these crimes remain much lower than those in the Jewish community. These are not just transient numbers in official reports, but a daily benchmark for the feeling of safety. And when this feeling is compounded by the recurring notion that citizenship is conditional, and discrimination is written on every wall, the conviction strengthens that horizons are limited, and the future is unstable and unsafe, making migration an option.

It is true that migration is not only an Arab issue. Jews are also leaving, driven by economic or political motives or seeking a higher quality of life. In recent years, there has been an increase in immigration applications to Europe and North America, in addition to the migration of professionals in the technology sector to work abroad. But the difference lies not only in the number of those leaving but in each community's capacity to compensate. The Jewish community has a broader economic structure and a counter-migration from abroad, which allows it to absorb the departure of thousands without compromising its demographic or economic balance. In contrast, the Arab community has no source of compensation other than natural growth.

Migration here does not just mean the movement of individuals, but rather the extraction of a whole layer of human capital from a society that is already weak. The equation that young people face today is both rational and harsh: an extremely low sense of security, alongside escalating racism, difficult financial conditions, and a housing crisis, against a backdrop of an environment that provides relative stability and broader professional prospects in America or Europe. It is not a matter of loving the place less, but rather a greater concern for the future. Migration is not treason, and despair is not weakness; rather, the continued bleeding without genuine treatment means becoming accustomed to absence.

The question now is: Who will remain after just one decade if our security situation continues at this pace? The question that should trouble every political activist and anyone who considers themselves a leader in their community or a representative of it is: Have we done enough to instill hope and a spirit of shared destiny among our youth? Have we reflected an image that expresses our sincere desire for unity and standing together in the face of threats looming from all sides? Does the leadership of the Arab community convey a sense of shared destiny and collective concern, or does it reflect a state of fragmentation, selfishness, and individual salvation?

If we do not succeed in rebuilding trust, in creating a collective horizon that makes young people feel that their stay is not an individual sacrifice but participation in a common project, migration will turn into a permanent and escalating path. At that point, the question will not be why they are thinking of leaving, but why we have failed to plant hope before our youth and future generations.

Hope is not a slogan for consumption, nor is it a word raised at a festival only to be forgotten. In these circumstances, hope becomes an end in itself, a daily policy, and a moral project. A community that loses hope loses its internal balance before it loses its children. It is not required of leaders to provide magical solutions, but to protect the idea of the future from collapse, and to prevent despair from transforming into a collective conviction.

Planting hope has become a condition for staying in the homeland. When the community, with its leadership, fails to foster an inclusive discourse and a shared destiny, and to present an ethical model that transcends narrow interests, the alternative is despair.

Hope does not arise from a vacuum, but is created with a clear voice, a unified stance, and a sincere feeling that we are one group with one fate. In previous surveys, amidst the enthusiasm generated by the Sakhnin uprising, the Joint List gained more than sixteen seats, but the hesitation and vagueness brought it down in a recent survey to twelve seats. This is another indicator of diminishing hope. Wise leadership plants hope for the future, and this can only be achieved by demonstrating a genuine desire for cooperation and a unified approach while instilling a spirit of teamwork and shared goals, not fragmentation and division and boasting about self-aggrandizement while seeking to undermine the other.