Lucy Aharish is one of a growing number of Arab-Israeli media personalities, criticised by both the Jewish and Arab communities for her high profile. But, as Rachel Shabi discovers, these are battles she has faced all her life, from being bullied at school to surviving a suicide bomb.
When Lucy Aharish turned up to audition for the role of newsreader on Israeli commercial television, she saw 10 other women awaiting their turn for the screen test. "They were all blonde and blue-eyed, very Tel Aviv, like the typecast of the channel," says the 28-year-old Aharish. "I thought there was no way that I'd be accepted but that I'd just give it a try." She was accepted - and became the first Arab-Israeli newsreader on mainstream Israeli television.
That set off a frenzy of interest in this Arab-Israeli journalist who speaks fluent, unaccented Hebrew and constantly flummoxes Israeli cab drivers when they discover, mid anti-Arab tirade, that their canny female passenger is a Muslim. In her role as newsreader and West Bank correspondent for Israel's Channel 10 TV, Aharish was the bright new female on the block and one of the key players in a circle of young Arab-Israelis blazing a trail into Jewish salons through TV sets, movie screens and glossy magazines.
"I'm an Israeli Arab, a Muslim girl who speaks fluent Hebrew," says Aharish. "People don't imagine when they see me, that I'm an Arab - that's an advantage and it has opened doors." Arab-Israelis - Palestinians who remained in Israeli after its creation in 1948 - form just over 20 per cent of the population of the Jewish state. In theory, this sector is supposed to enjoy equal rights, but in reality there are grave limitations to that in a society where "Arab" is practically synonymous with "enemy" and the Arab population is constantly viewed as a potential fifth column.
In this context, it is no wonder that Lucy's appearance on popular Israeli TV caused such ripples of interest. Now, nearly two years after she made her glittery debut on prime time news, she has a lower profile - but can still be seen and heard all over Israeli broadcast media: she co-presents a morning radio show, is newsreader for youth TV, reports for a television magazine programme (short documentaries on news issues), and presents entertainment features for a music TV channel.
It has been, by her own admission, a fairy-tale experience for someone who definitely does not tick the right boxes in one of the most elitist professions in Israel, where white, European-Jewish men still dominate. "I still don't let myself forget that just a few years ago, I was this Arab girl from Jerusalem, who was working as a receptionist in a restaurant," she says. Nor, it seems, can she forget the constant tightrope walk required of a high-profile Arab woman; criticised, scrutinised and constantly critiqued by both Arab and Jewish societies within Israel.
Aharish was born in 1981 in Dimona, a desert town in Israel's periphery - famous for being the site of the Jewish state's openly secret nuclear facility, and a typically right-wing, rally-round-the-flag kind of community. The Aharish family moved from their hometown of Nazareth, in northern Israel, seeking better work and a different life in the desert town. Her father is an engineer and was employed at the dusty desert town's Dead Sea mineral plant. But it was an odd choice of address: they were the only Arab family in Dimona.
"I grew up in a Jewish school," says Aharish, who now lives in Tel Aviv. "I studied the Jewish bible and Jewish history and all my friends were Jewish. I had Muslim and Arab culture at home, of course - but outside, I celebrated all the Jewish festivals."
She is emphatically proud of this "double life" childhood and emphasises the positives in this "chance to learn about two cultures". But it was also fraught with difficulties and contradictions. "At high school I was the Arab girl," she recalls. "I was teased and sometimes I got beaten up." She remembers a long period where the taunts nearly got to be too much and there was graffiti scrawled on to the school's toilet wall each day: "We don't want filthy Arabs in our school."
Her father counselled her to tough it out: "He said I could change schools if I wanted - but that if I did, I would never learn to face my problems and work them out." She stayed. The hate-graffiti-scrawler later became her best friend.
Ten years before Aharish had been in a diametrically opposite situation, facing a different kind of hate. Her family were victims of a suicide bomb attack while on a day-trip to Gaza. It was at the onset of the first intifada, back when the borders between Israel and the Palestinian enclave were open and Israelis frequently took shopping trips to the strip. "A bomb exploded next to our car. They thought we were Jews," says Aharish. "I was six years old and we used to go to Gaza every Friday." She says that as a consequence of this terrifying attack, she grew up with a negative image of Palestinians.
By the time Aharish arrived at university in Jerusalem, she had a much better understanding of the Palestinian side of the conflict. But her nuanced and decidedly unaffiliated approach to regional politics did not win her much approval from the Arab-Israeli sector when she sat in the newsreader's seat on Channel 10. Rather than statements of pride and congratulations, she received angry e-mails and complaints. Callers would accuse her of faking her "Jewish Israeli" accent and would harangue her over her choice of words: "terrorist" and "suicide bomber" to describe deadly Palestinian attacks.
Aharish is unequivocal in her defence of such terminology, but laments that her detractors saw only the finished product on-screen, not the battles that went on in the newsroom before the broadcast. She cites an example: "Every day we'd get these beeper alerts from the Israeli army about overnight activity in the West Bank," she says. Those messages would inform us of the dozens of "suspected terrorists" that had been rounded up by the Israeli army each night. "To me, that is propaganda. If you put that out on your news programme, you are saying something: that 35 Palestinians each night want to kill Jews - and if that happens every night, that's basically like saying the whole Palestinian population of the West Bank wants to kill the Jews." Aharish flatly refused to read those reports during her newscasts.
But the criticisms of Aharish are part of a wider discussion about a growing number of young Arab-Israeli personalities who are enjoying prominence and success in Israel. The list includes the actor Yousef Sweid, who played a heartthrob football player in a popular Israeli TV series; Clara Khoury, who starred in the award-winning film, The Syrian Bride, as well as a recent, popular Israeli comedy series about an Arab-Israeli family; and Kais Nashef, another star of Israeli TV dramas and one of the protagonists in Hany Abu-Assad's acclaimed 2005 film, Paradise Now.
The problem, say the critics, is that the success of those actors and presenters is premised on the erasure of Arab identity - and it is this rather than any new tolerance or acceptability, that has cracked the glass ceilings and broken through entry barriers. According to this view, successful Arab-Israelis in the Israeli mainstream media are functioning as fig leaves in what continues to be a discriminatory environment.
Aharish is visibly exasperated by such analysis. She holds that, rather than accept social stereotypes, she is constantly challenging them. "We live in a racist society - of course we do," she says. "I live it and experience it every day. But I am not willing to give in to the racism in this country, or to racist thoughts. I want to fight those preconceptions, even if it means I have to fight it every day."
Although she worries about Israel's political shift to the extreme right wing and what that might mean for the Arab-Israeli population, Aharish is stubborn in her refusal to let racism get in her way. She puts her sudden exit from Israeli Channel 10 last year down to a personality clash and a lack of experience. She hints, but never actually states, that there was an "ethnic factor" at play - although she later points out that to say as much is "very difficult for an Arab".
And, earlier this year, during Israel's three-week assault on the Gaza strip that killed 1,400 Palestinians, Aharish again came up against those tightrope contradictions of her identity and status. "I found myself crying at home every day because of what I saw on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya TV," she recalls. "The people who were killed, for nothing... then you see that 99 per cent of Jewish Israelis agreed with the war, they watched innocent people in Gaza getting killed for nothing and just didn't care. It went beyond Israelis and Palestinians and the conflict. People lost their humanity."
Presenting on public service radio, Aharish grilled Israeli politicians over the death toll in Gaza. When one member of the Israeli parliament explained during an interview that residents of Gaza were sent SMS messages to warn them of impending attacks, Aharish responded: "You know what, I'm sure you put a big smiley face at the end of that SMS," she now recalls. "Are you kidding me? You sent them an SMS to say you're going to bomb them? Can you hear yourself?"
Aharish seems to be energised rather than exhausted by this constant struggle - and hopes one day to challenge similarly founded stereotypes of Arab women in America; her goal is to become a presenter on CNN. Are there any drawbacks to her chosen career path? "None of us is married," she says, of herself and two elder sisters. "We grew up to be really strong, really independent - and now it is difficult for Arab men to accept us. Of course, my mum is going crazy."
If you go
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Funchal via Lisbon, with a connecting flight with Air Portugal. Economy class returns cost from Dh3,845 return including taxes.
The trip
The WalkMe app can be downloaded from the usual sources. If you don’t fancy doing the trip yourself, then Explore offers an eight-day levada trails tour from Dh3,050, not including flights.
The hotel
There isn’t another hotel anywhere in Madeira that matches the history and luxury of the Belmond Reid's Palace in Funchal. Doubles from Dh1,400 per night including taxes.
MATCH INFO
CAF Champions League semi-finals first-leg fixtures
Tuesday:
Primeiro Agosto (ANG) v Esperance (TUN) (8pm UAE)
Al Ahly (EGY) v Entente Setif (ALG) (11PM)
Second legs:
October 23
Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
MATCH INFO
New Zealand 176-8 (20 ovs)
England 155 (19.5 ovs)
New Zealand win by 21 runs
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo hybrid
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 390bhp
Torque: 400Nm
Price: Dh340,000 ($92,579
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The specs
Engine: 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6
Power: 380hp at 5,800rpm
Torque: 530Nm at 1,300-4,500rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Price: From Dh299,000 ($81,415)
On sale: Now
Six tips to secure your smart home
Most smart home devices are controlled via the owner's smartphone. Therefore, if you are using public wi-fi on your phone, always use a VPN (virtual private network) that offers strong security features and anonymises your internet connection.
Keep your smart home devices’ software up-to-date. Device makers often send regular updates - follow them without fail as they could provide protection from a new security risk.
Use two-factor authentication so that in addition to a password, your identity is authenticated by a second sign-in step like a code sent to your mobile number.
Set up a separate guest network for acquaintances and visitors to ensure the privacy of your IoT devices’ network.
Change the default privacy and security settings of your IoT devices to take extra steps to secure yourself and your home.
Always give your router a unique name, replacing the one generated by the manufacturer, to ensure a hacker cannot ascertain its make or model number.
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Saturday (UAE kick-off times)
Cologne v Union Berlin (5.30pm)
Fortuna Dusseldorf v Borussia Dortmund (5.30pm)
Hertha Berlin v Eintracht Frankfurt (5.30pm)
Paderborn v Werder Bremen (5.30pm)
Wolfsburg v Freiburg (5.30pm)
Bayern Munich v Borussia Monchengladbach (8.30pm)
Sunday
Mainz v Augsburg (5.30pm)
Schalke v Bayer Leverkusen (8pm)
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
How to help
Call the hotline on 0502955999 or send "thenational" to the following numbers:
2289 - Dh10
2252 - Dh50
6025 - Dh20
6027 - Dh100
6026 - Dh200
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Sri Lanka-India Test series schedule
- 1st Test India won by 304 runs at Galle
- 2nd Test Thursday-Monday at Colombo
- 3rd Test August 12-16 at Pallekele
AS%20WE%20EXIST
%3Cp%3EAuthor%3A%20Kaoutar%20Harchi%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EPublisher%3A%20Other%20Press%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EPages%3A%20176%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EAvailable%3A%20Now%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Match statistics
Dubai Sports City Eagles 8 Dubai Exiles 85
Eagles
Try: Bailey
Pen: Carey
Exiles
Tries: Botes 3, Sackmann 2, Fourie 2, Penalty, Walsh, Gairn, Crossley, Stubbs
Cons: Gerber 7
Pens: Gerber 3
Man of the match: Tomas Sackmann (Exiles)
Gulf Under 19s final
Dubai College A 50-12 Dubai College B
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates, Etihad and Swiss fly direct from the UAE to Zurich from Dh2,855 return, including taxes.
The chalet
Chalet N is currently open in winter only, between now and April 21. During the ski season, starting on December 11, a week’s rental costs from €210,000 (Dh898,431) per week for the whole property, which has 22 beds in total, across six suites, three double rooms and a children’s suite. The price includes all scheduled meals, a week’s ski pass, Wi-Fi, parking, transfers between Munich, Innsbruck or Zurich airports and one 50-minute massage per person. Private ski lessons cost from €360 (Dh1,541) per day. Halal food is available on request.
Results
5pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 80,000 (Turf) 1,400m. Winner: Al Ajeeb W’Rsan, Pat Dobbs (jockey), Jaci Wickham (trainer).
5.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 80,000 (T) 1,400m racing. Winner: Mujeeb, Fabrice Veron, Eric Lemartinel.
6pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 90,000 (T) 2,200m. Winner: Onward, Connor Beasley, Abdallah Al Hammadi.
6.30pm: Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Jewel Crown Prep Rated Conditions (PA) Dh 125,000 (T) 2,200m. Winner: Somoud, Richard Mullen, Jean de Roualle.
7pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh 70,000 (T) 1,600m. Winner: AF Arrab, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel.
7.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh 90,000 (T) 1,400m. Winner: Irish Freedom, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar.
Premier Futsal 2017 Finals
Al Wasl Football Club; six teams, five-a-side
Delhi Dragons: Ronaldinho
Bengaluru Royals: Paul Scholes
Mumbai Warriors: Ryan Giggs
Chennai Ginghams: Hernan Crespo
Telugu Tigers: Deco
Kerala Cobras: Michel Salgado
MATCH INFO
Manchester City 3
Danilo (16'), Bernardo Silva (34'), Fernandinho (72')
Brighton & Hove Albion 1
Ulloa (20')
Leaderboard
63 - Mike Lorenzo-Vera (FRA)
64 - Rory McIlroy (NIR)
66 - Jon Rahm (ESP)
67 - Tom Lewis (ENG), Tommy Fleetwood (ENG)
68 - Rafael Cabrera-Bello (ESP), Marcus Kinhult (SWE)
69 - Justin Rose (ENG), Thomas Detry (BEL), Francesco Molinari (ITA), Danny Willett (ENG), Li Haotong (CHN), Matthias Schwab (AUT)
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Key products and UAE prices
iPhone XS
With a 5.8-inch screen, it will be an advance version of the iPhone X. It will be dual sim and comes with better battery life, a faster processor and better camera. A new gold colour will be available.
Price: Dh4,229
iPhone XS Max
It is expected to be a grander version of the iPhone X with a 6.5-inch screen; an inch bigger than the screen of the iPhone 8 Plus.
Price: Dh4,649
iPhone XR
A low-cost version of the iPhone X with a 6.1-inch screen, it is expected to attract mass attention. According to industry experts, it is likely to have aluminium edges instead of stainless steel.
Price: Dh3,179
Apple Watch Series 4
More comprehensive health device with edge-to-edge displays that are more than 30 per cent bigger than displays on current models.
MATCH INFO
Qalandars 112-4 (10 ovs)
Banton 53 no
Northern Warriors 46 all out (9 ovs)
Kumara 3-10, Garton 3-10, Jordan 2-2, Prasanna 2-7
Qalandars win by six wickets
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants
The biog
Job: Fitness entrepreneur, body-builder and trainer
Favourite superhero: Batman
Favourite quote: We must become the change we want to see, by Mahatma Gandhi.
Favourite car: Lamborghini
OPINIONS ON PALESTINE & ISRAEL
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
First-round leaderbaord
-5 C Conners (Can)
-3 B Koepka (US), K Bradley (US), V Hovland (Nor), A Wise (US), S Horsfield (Eng), C Davis (Aus);
-2 C Morikawa (US), M Laird (Sco), C Tringale (US)
Selected others: -1 P Casey (Eng), R Fowler (US), T Hatton (Eng)
Level B DeChambeau (US), J Rose (Eng)
1 L Westwood (Eng), J Spieth (US)
3 R McIlroy (NI)
4 D Johnson (US)
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Race card
5pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m; 5.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,400m
6pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,400m; 6.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m
7pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 2,200m
7.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh100,000 (PA) 1,400m
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
What can you do?
Document everything immediately; including dates, times, locations and witnesses
Seek professional advice from a legal expert
You can report an incident to HR or an immediate supervisor
You can use the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation’s dedicated hotline
In criminal cases, you can contact the police for additional support
RESULTS
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The bio
Favourite book: Peter Rabbit. I used to read it to my three children and still read it myself. If I am feeling down it brings back good memories.
Best thing about your job: Getting to help people. My mum always told me never to pass up an opportunity to do a good deed.
Best part of life in the UAE: The weather. The constant sunshine is amazing and there is always something to do, you have so many options when it comes to how to spend your day.
Favourite holiday destination: Malaysia. I went there for my honeymoon and ended up volunteering to teach local children for a few hours each day. It is such a special place and I plan to retire there one day.
