Yona Yahav, mayor of Haifa, responds to the Hackney Greens. In the Times:
Last week, the Green leadership of the London borough of Hackney announced its intention to end its twinning agreement with Haifa, bringing to a close a partnership that has lasted nearly six decades. The announcement was accompanied by a series of grave accusations against the state of Israel and portrayed Haifa as a city that no longer reflects the values Hackney seeks to uphold.
At a time when facts are so easily replaced by slogans, and complexity reduced to political soundbites, it is important to pause and consider the reality. Haifa is an exceptional model of coexistence in the Middle East. For more than a century, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and Bahá’ís have lived alongside one another here, not as an abstract ideal but as a way of life.
They study in the same schools and universities. They care for one another in our hospitals, work side by side, establish businesses together, meet in the same cafés and restaurants, and co-operate in local government and community life. This is the everyday reality of my city….
About 20 per cent of our residents are Arab, both Christian and Muslim, and they are represented at every level of local government.
Every December, Haifa hosts a “holiday of holidays festival” which has become one of the city’s international symbols. Hundreds of thousands of visitors come to celebrate the Jewish, Christian and Muslim festivals taking place during the season. They enjoy music, art, food and culture, and see for themselves that diversity is one of Haifa’s greatest strengths.
Jewish pupils in Haifa learn spoken Arabic at school because I believe language is one of the most important bridges between people. We honour Arab cultural figures by naming public sites and streets across the city after them. Two of Haifa’s defining features, its flourishing technology sector and its renowned culinary scene, are themselves expressions of this shared society.
Of course, Haifa is not isolated from the painful reality of the region in which we live. On October 7, 2023, Israel suffered one of the most devastating terrorist attacks, and the worst massacre, in its history. Families from every part of Israeli society paid a terrible price. Jewish and non-Jewish citizens were murdered and abducted, and women were subjected to sexual violence.
It is precisely because of this that we must distinguish between political disagreement and the delegitimisation of an entire society through a distortion of reality.
Governments can be criticised. Policies can be challenged. That is how democracies function. But when a city that has devoted decades to building a shared society is portrayed as a symbol of racism or intolerance, it is the truth that suffers.
Cities should be bridges, not walls. Haifa proves every day that bridges are stronger.
The role of a mayor is not to conduct global politics. My responsibility is to ensure that every child in my city, whatever their religion or community, can study in safety; that every family receives the services they deserve; and that every person feels they belong.
My message to the British public, and particularly to the residents of Hackney, is therefore a simple one. Do not judge Haifa through headlines, slogans or political resolutions. Come and visit us. Meet our residents. Walk through our neighbourhoods, hospitals, universities, markets and holy places. Speak to those of all faiths who share this city and call it home.
I believe that one visit to Haifa can teach more than a thousand arguments. And so I invite Zoë Garbett, the newly elected mayor of Hackney, to visit Haifa and to look for herself, and not through screens and social media posts.
The world does not need more cities severing ties with one another. It needs more cities that choose, every day, to bring people together. This is not a utopia. This is Haifa.
The chances of Zoë Garbett accepting Yona Yahav’s invitation are, I would say, close to zero. She’s smug in her little Green virtue-signaling bubble, sending out the right messages to the Muslim/Free Palestine supporters who got her elected – and with zero interest in complicated facts about the real world.
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