Who cares about Arabs?

For two months, this Israeli citizen remained captive in Gaza and we knew nothing about it. And if we knew, we didn't remember. We didn't remember because there was nobody there to remind us of this terrible fact.

A search for other media references regarding his release came up with nothing. I may have missed a hidden report here and there, but big headlines weren't there. In the face of the media silence in this case, it is easy to imagine the nature and scope of the media coverage had the long-awaited moment arrived and abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit were released and had returned to his family.

The fact that Israel's major media outlets ignored the story of the lengthy captivity and joyful release is an extreme example of the common attitude of Israeli media to Arab citizens. In the media's eyes, this community almost doesn't exist. The almost only chance of Arabs in Israel to receive media attention, and particularly in "prime time," is when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is on the agenda.

And yet, it turns out that even the context of the conflict is insufficient in order for an Arab Israeli to enjoy some media attention. The sporadic attention given to Riad al-Luch not only failed to extract him from the abyss of public indifference, but also further reinforced the framework that views Arab citizens as a security threat.

Arab mother's silence

The laconic wording of the (rare) report regarding his release must have immediately raised questions about the circumstances of the abduction among average readers. In the lack of any human or personal context, the abducted Arab remained in the theater of clichés governed by the reflex of suspicion when it comes to any Arab citizen.

The comparison to the media coverage of the two last abductions of Israeli soldiers makes the extent of the problem clear: We are familiar with Ehud Goldwasser's wife and sympathetically follow Noam Shalit's public statements. We know what kind of boy and soldier Gilad was, and remember that Eldad Regev's mother died several years ago.

Amazingly enough, when we're not talking about an Arab-Israeli, the abduction coverage isn't limited to the security aspect, but rather, the opposite is true. The coverage humanizes the abductees and creates a genuinely intimate familiarity with their families.

On the other hand, during the two months where al-Luch remained captive, we didn't hear a word from his mother. This is certainly not because she was less concerned about him; it's apparently because the media assumed that the public as a whole was much less concerned.

The problem here is that we have a "self-fulfilling prophecy": The absence of Arab-Israeli citizens from the media stage leads to growing alienation between them and Jewish citizens. They simply don’t exist: Not as neighbors, not in line at the supermarket, and not on the television screen.

What we need is to soberly examine the twisted social mirror produced by Israeli media when it comes to minority groups in general and the Arab population in particular.

This distortion is not only professionally indecent, but also stimulates the social destruction mechanism. It nurtures alienation and suspicion and hides the simple fact that despite the foolish ideas raised by some politicians, there's no alternative to coexistence in this country.

On the day that news anchor Miki Haymovitch will be joined by "Ali Jabrin," and Yair Lapid's talk show will battle against a successful show hosted by "Samira Khatib," we'll know that Israeli society is ready to seriously address the question of civil partnership and national diversity.

The writer is the director of Agenda, a center for media strategy