 |
|
Dr. Dov Khenin, MK
|
Year by year, the Heschel Center sees more and more of its Fellows graduates apply their learning to new spheres with expanded influence. This spring's Israeli elections were no exception, as one of the Heschel Environmental Fellows was elected into the 17th Kenneset of the State of Israel. Dr. Dov Khenin, who is a graduate of the very first Fellows program (1999-2000), now sits in the Kenneset (Israeli parliament) as part of the Hadash party ("The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality").
Khenin, always a social activist, describes his time in the Fellows program as a period where he was able to work with many social and environmental activists from around Israel, which allowed him to integrate environment into his political philosophy.
"Politics is one thing, but it's not the only thing," Khenin says, "but it’s the way to deal with things in the democratic society. Politics is very important as it is the seat of power, and it determines how we make decisions and allocate our resources. We need to combine this with civil society. There is no contradiction between social activism and political change.
"It is a problem with the military agenda in Israel society, social and environmental change has been pushed away. This creates a situation where the quality of life for many people makes it impossible for them to be concerned with social and environmental issues. You can't separate when Israel will be concerned with military issues and when it will be concerned with social issues. Israel is obviously very involved in the conflict. It is an occupying power, and keeps an entire people under its control, and you can't separate that situation from the social and environmental change around it."
Hadash, Dr. Khenin's party, runs on a platform of Socialist ideals coupled with a cross-cultural constituency of both Jews and Israeli Arabs. There is no contradiction, he says, between social justice and environmental protection.
"It is complementary," He explains "as you can't defend environment without an economic agenda. When you see that Arabs, the poor, and people living in periphery areas are more affected by environmental dynamics, you see that there is a very clear social dimension to environmental issues."
Though Hadash will not be included in the current governing coalition, it will still be busy during the Kenneset's session. Dr Khenin explains: "The current government does not include us, and in fact goes in the opposite direction from us. We will try to influence government politics from the outside and work as a strong and powerful opposition, which is extremely important in a democratic society."
|
| back to the Shavuot Newsletter |
|
|
|
|
|